China Internet Watch

China Big Data Marketing Spends Surged to over $325.4M in 2015

CIW Team — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 00:12:41 +0000

China’s big data related marketing spends rose sharply last year with an increase by 153.0% YoY to over two billion yuan (US$325.4 million) in 2015 according to Chinese research company Analysys.

Year 2015 has witnessed the most rapid development of big data marketing in China according to predictions of Analysys. The growth rate soared to 153.0% in 2015, higher than 141.9% in 2014.

Big data related marketing consumption will trigger a high annual growth rate in the next several years. China’s big data marketing spends are predicted to reach 27.66 billion yuan (US$4.5 billion) with an annual growth rate of 128.9% in 2018.

China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CAICT) forecasted in September that China’s large data hardware, software and services spends would reach 11.59 billion yuan (US$1.89 billion) in 2015, and about 80.0% came from data-based targeted marketing solution providers.

Current popular big data marketing applications include targeted advertising, programmatic buying, ads monitoring, creative optimization, customer relationship management (CRM), online and offline sales, risk control, research and insights, personas development, corporate internal management, new product development and etc.

76.0% respondent companies have utilized targeted advertising according to TechWeb. Weibo and WeChat are popular marketing channels in 2015. More companies and executives have realized the huge potential of big data marketing in China. The overall advertising market was predicted to increase 7.8% YoY in 2015 according to GroupM.

Also read: China Social Media Marketing Trends in 2015

The Value of WeChat Official Accounts

Incitez China — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 05:00:30 +0000

In 2014, Tencent’s mobile revenue reached 22.171 billion yuan (US$3.571 billion) with popularization of WeChat. Now WeChat and Weibo are the two most active mobile apps in China. WeChat is a relatively new app compared with Weibo, but it far surpassed weibo in the number of users and monthly usage.

WeChat has become an important part of China mobile users’ life, and it has influenced their daily life from many aspects. It can take the role as an instant messeger and social networking platform. People can communicate with others whenever they like, and share with friends what they did, what they like, what is interesting…WeChat Official Accounts contribute a lot in this process.

WeChat official accounts integrate closely with friends circle; 20% WeChat users read news or messages through Official Accounts while 80% others would read in Moments. When shared more frequently, it would be read more. According to iReseach, 6 messages/articles were read by WeChat users on average per day; 4% WeChat users even read 20 and more per day.

Official Accounts take the role as connecting-to-all, people could connect with news, companies or services by following Official Accounts (including service accounts, subscription accounts) or Enterprise Accounts.

Nearly half of WeChat official accounts users had 6 to 15 official accounts. Most users regard it as a useful tool, and they can use it according to their own interests. 88.9% users are willing to recommend Official Accounts to their friends or families, and almost 99% users will follow more official accounts.

WeChat are gradually improving itself; new features allow users to pay for goods, taxes, services, and connect with computers, videos and etc in an easier way. For example, translation of WeChat Moments posts, fast sending photos while in chat, and importing chat history to new photos. In China, almost 330 million people on average use WeChat every month, of which WeChat Official Account users have taken up 79.3%. With the development of mobile internet and convenient mobile equipment, users spend more time on WeChat surfing or communicating. Advertisers could seize this opportunity to popularize their products.

Automotive advertising is active on the platform of WeChat. Recently, many automobile advertisements have appeared on WeChat, users’ comments and sharing could help them reach more users. WeChat Traffic, an official acount of WeChat, which can provide instant search of road traffic, vehicle violation inquiry, traffic cameras and so on, has become a typical platform for automotive advertising. Here are some comparisons between WeChat Traffic and other automotive information applications.

WeChat Traffic and other Official Accounts have accumulated a large number of car owners who want to change or buy a new car.

Nearly 80% car owners pre-order car insurance through WeChat Traffic, far more than other accounts or apps. Nearly 70% of WeChat traffic users are male, and 93% of them are 25 years old or above. High education users make up of 78%, higher than others.

With new development and improvement in WeChat, more users would be attracted to WeChat and official accounts, which could be a good opportunity for advertisers.

Trend of China’s Automobile Consumption in 2015

CIW Team — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 02:00:49 +0000

With the booming of the new emerging market, automobile has become less expensive, and the internet has brought an open platform which makes it more reachable to families. China Automotive Technology Research Center estimated last year that automobile sales volume will reach 25.5 million in 2015 and 35 million in 2020 with average annual growth rate of 7%.

Tencent made a research on China’s automobile consumption after surveying 33,729 internet users, 83.5% of which are between 21 to 45 years old, 30% with high school degree, 34.8% with a bachelor degree or higher. The survey was made across over 20 provinces in all levels of city tiers.

According to the research, the number of car-owners in the second or third tier cities have similar purchase intentions as that in the first-tier cities; about 30% users plan to become car-owners in one year, especially in second and third tier cities. There is still a large potentially bigger automobile market in China.

60% respondents intend to buy cars priced between 100 to 200 thousand yuan (US$16,108 to 32,216), especially in second and third tier cities. 30 years old or below prefer Chinese brand while 45 years old and above like European cars. And users in different ages focus on different points when choosing a car. Users under 30 years old put priority on automobile design rather than technical functions while users above 45 years old prefer cars of rich technical functions.

Convenient technical functions of automobiles are one of the several key factors that influence people’s purchase intention in China. There are several functions that automobiles may equip, interacting with smartphones, wonderful social network experience, navigation system, voice-ond so on.

Most automobiles are not equipped with attractive interactivities with mobile phones although 58% car owners receive one to three calls when driving every day; even about 20% owners have four to six calls when driving. 95% internet users surveyed are open towards interactivities connectivity with mobile phones; and only 5% don’t need it at all.

Some research shows that using mobile phones while driving may make drivers respond slower which may cause accidents. 40% users surveyed wish to enhance social network experience by improving intelligent safety. And many users require Wi-Fi equipped within the car, which is convenient for people to use navigation, receive payment if using Uber or Didi, a car calling app in China, or search for the road traffic with WeChat Traffic…

The navigation system is a necessary and important device inside the cars; nearly 70% users need navigation, especially during travel or on business trip in other strange cities. When using the navigation, users may find that it may locate inaccurately, waste power, show no road traffic, too many voice messages and sometimes can’t update in time. Solutions need to deal with those problems, where improving network experience may help in some means.

More than half of car owners like listening to the music or radio inside the cars; many are loyal listeners of some internet radio programs.

Other high-end functions, such as auto-braking, pneumatic suspension, self-adoptive cruising, supplemental steering, night-vision and so on, which help with safety, are expected according to the research. Driverless cars are also talked about, only 4% users know nothing about it; most people approved it is useful while the safety can’t be guaranteed.

Automobile users in China’s first-, second- and third-tier, fourth-tier and county level cities almost have the same budget level for purchasing automobile devices.

Over half of the respondents would consider purchasing cars online; about 60% prefer purchasing online if they can enjoy a lower price than in stores.

People who purchase automobile accessories online are higher than those who purchase offline. The trend may be more obvious in the future.

When purchasing cars, 40% users say they may consider purchasing new ones and second-hand ones at the same time; less than 10% users will give a priority to second-hand ones. Second-hand automobile market lacks mutual trust between buyers and sellers. 48.2% would choose to buy cars from acquaintances; and 59.3% respondents are afraid of facing undisclosed poor conditions of cars when they buy second-hand cars.

43.3% users obtain automobile information from the mobile internet; automobile vertical websites rank next important information channel. The internet becomes the major sources of automobile information.

Also read: Chinese Luxury Traveler Insights 2015

Top 10 China’s IT Websites in July 2015

Incitez China — Thu, 03 Sep 2015 08:00:00 +0000

In July 2015, the average daily reach of China’s vertical IT websites reached 30.13 million users. The average daily reach of Zol.com.cn reached 491 million, ranking first in China’s vertical websites on IT, followed by Pconline.com.cn (3.18 million) and Csdn.net (2.69 million).

In July 2015, the effective usage time of China’s vertical IT website totaled to 71,986,000 hours. The top three IT websites with the longest usage time were Zol.com.cn (10,070,000 hours), Pconline.com.cn (6.57 million hours), and cnBeta.net (5.52 million hours).

Also read: Top 10 China’s Fashion Websites in July 2015

China’s Mobile Car Calling Market from 2014 to 2015

CIW Team — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 03:00:21 +0000

Kuaidi and Didi mobile car calling apps still rank first in China’s car calling market by usage rate according to iiMedia Research. Carpooling will become the next focus of competitions in China’s car calling market.

Public transportation is primary transportation in China’s first-tier and second-tier cities when mobile phone users go to work, which accounts for 42.8%. Public transportation system in first and second-tier cities is more sophisticated and less expensive, thus it is the main means to go to work among most mobile phone users.

Brand awareness of Kuaidi ONE and Didi cars lead the market, but China’s mobile phone users’ overall awareness of the car calling mobile commerce has room for improvement. Uber ranks next to Kuaidi and Didi, accounting for 13.0%.

Nearly 20% Chinese mobile phone users surveyed used car calling mobile business app, and we can see that mobile car calling market has been developing gradually. China mobile car calling market began to detonate from the second half of 2014, and developed quickly driven by the capital. Under the background of car-purchasing restriction policy of some second and third-tier cities, China mobile car calling market prospect remains good.

45.2% of Chinese mobile phone users used mobile car calling service after receiving promotion offers; and this proportion is far higher than other factors. Now the mobile car calling market is in the early development. Using marketing activities to gain a large number of new users has become a main tactic among car calling app companies.

In 2014, the budget of 76.9% of Chinese taxi calling app users is under 50 yuan per trip while the budget of 37.7% of car calling applications users is between 50 to 100 yuan. .

Users’ application usage scenarios distribution is relatively balanced. Taxi applications are a kind of high-frequency and broad-coverage applications, with a strong adhesive feature; once able to live with local travel information and users’ data, it will become the main way of O2O marketing in the future.

Although 37.1% users who used the mobile car application understood that the government took appropriate regulatory governance policies for mobile car market, the usage frequency has not changed much; 34.4% usage frequency decreased slightly. But overall, the appropriate government regulation of car calling mobile apps had little impact on the users’ intention to keep using this type of apps.

At the end of 2014, taxi calling apps were the used most frequently, accounting for 43.2%; and 30.5% used them often. The usage of business car calling apps increased slightly, accounting for 15.6%.

In 2015, taxi calling, private car calling, carpooling, car sharing and other sharing models will accumulate a large number of passengers’ locations, transport routes, usage time and other data on those mobile platforms. These data could go through deep integration with local life services after collated and excavated, and could form a marketing system with passenger routes.

After taxi and car, carpooling will be the next main battlefield of car calling applications. Although some of the participants entered the market, the market potential has not been fully tapped. After the merge of Kuaidi and Didi, they can expand their business lines and integrate existing resources. The carpooling market trends to bring into another wave of marketing craze in the next period.

Also read: Baidu’s Global Market Share Decreased to 7.52% in June 2015