China users’ time spent on digital media has exceeded that on traditional media in 2015. Digital media is the largest media by ad revenue; online ad revenue will continue to grow, especially mobile ad revenues.

According to eMarketer, China internet users on average spend over 6 hours 8 minutes on media per day, of which over 3 hours on social media, 2 hours 40 minutes on TV, 11 minutes on  radio, 10 minutes on newspaper, and only 1 minute on magazine. 94.8% users over 18 years old watch television while spending less time is spent. 46% users use the internet (PC), 43.1% use smartphones, and 42% use feature phones.

The compound average growth rate (CAGA) of print media (newspaper and magazine) from 2011 to 2015 is -7.4%. The CAGA of newspaper is -5.1% and the CAGA of magazine is -7.4%. A report from Kantar shows the number of social media users in urban aras grow quickly from 28.6% in 2013 to 34% in 2014, which indicates that social media gradually become mainstream.

Diversification is one of the most obvious features of China social media, the post-90s are the largest group whose average age in 2014 is 30.4 years old; the average age in 2013 is 28.8 years old, which indicates that more different age-groups begin to use social media.

The number of users in the second, third and fourth-tier cities has increased while the number of users in first-tier cities has declined. The ratio of high education users dropped.

Chinese users prefer to use mobile internet for social media. Most people like using WeChat and Weibo on mobile apps while browsing BBS on computers. And different age level users have different internet behaviors. The post-90s often watch videos, the post-90s often shop online, and the post-70s often read news on the website.

In 2013, China internet users use Qzone most frequently while in 2014 WeChat became one of the most frequent-used mobile apps in China. More original content were generated on WeChat Weibo for the first time in 2014, and the engagement on WeChat was higher.

Chinese users who only read information on social media tend to be more according to data of Chinamedia 360. In 2014, 46% social media users didn’t participate in topic discussion or leave comments compared with 39% in 2013. A majority of users expected to get instant and practical information from social media; and users were more concious of privacies. Thus interactivities turn to be less.

Let’s take Wechat and Weibo as examples.

The average age of WeChat users is 26 years old, 97.7% users are under 50 years old. Most of WeChat users are employees, freelances, students and staff in state-owned enterprises.

WeChat has become an important part of Chinese life. 25% users on average open WeChat over 30 times per day, and 52.2% users over 10 times. About half of WeChat users have over 100 WeChat friends, 62.7% users have over 50 WeChat friends.

WeChat official account is one of the major features of WeChat. About 80% users would follow official accounts, especially accounts of companies and media. 29.1% official account users follow WeMedia accounts, 25.4% follow verified media accounts, 18.9% follow companies, 5.9% follow marketing accounts, and other 20.7% don’t follow any account. Over 40% users want to get information from official accounts.

Official subscription accounts can be categorized in entertainment, health, news, beauty and fashion by content. 42% accounts would interact with fans. Entertainment accounts are most welcome.

Combined MAU of Weixin (Chinese version of Wechat) and WeChat were 600 million as of 30 Jun 2015. Weibo MAUs reached 212 million in Q2 2015. 72% are 19 to 35 years old, the post-80s and post-90s are major parts of Weibo users. Male users made up of 60.9%, and female of 39.1%. Users in South China and East China are more active on Weibo than users in other parts of China.

Also read: WeChat Offers 8 Solutions For Smart Devices

Early in the morning on April 10, 2014, Elong’s staff received an email from CEO announcing the strategic cooperation with 17u.

Baidu’s recent purchase in Ctrip’s shares aroused a great disturbance in the OTA industry, after all Ctrip and Qunar’s market share accounted for 33.9% and 22.1% respectively. The joint of Ctrip and Qunar would control about half of the billion dollar market.

The actual merge of Ctrip and Qunar will take a long time, facing a lot of challenges. Therefore, the strategic cooperation between Elong and 17u will be one step ahead of Ctrip and Qunar. However, the OTA leader and the biggest vertical travel search Qunar, plus China’s biggest search engine Baidu with huge traffic resource, the merge will be invincible. The though of it quickened the cooperation of Elong and 17u.

As the second leader in OTA market, Elong chose to work with 17u backed up by Tencent. Elong’s price war with Ctrip lasted over a year cost it consecutive six quarters’ net profit loss. Data showed that in online ticket booking market, 17u remained as the number one but Ctrip rose to the third place through price war. In 2013, 17u only accounted for 2.1% hotel booking market, while cooperating with Elong which owns plenty of hotel resources seems to be a better choice.

It’s natural Elong seeks cooperation with 17u. In 2011, Tencent purchased 16% Elong’s stake with $84.4 million. 17u also accepted two investments from Tencent, the recent $500 million was the biggest financing in OTA market.

According to CTCNN, a Chinese travel industry finance media, it monitored 5 main online travel agencies’ tourist sites tickets booking market in November 2013. 17u ranked the top with 5,016 tickets sold out online. Followed by Yikuaiqu, Ctrip, Lvmama and Tuniu. Except for 17u, the other four OTA experienced growth in November. 17u dropped 1% monthly, while Yikuaiqu went up with 11.3% MoM increase. Tuniu increased monthly by 12.4%, Ctrip and Lvmama both grew 3.2%.

The data collected from 171 5A tourist sites tickets online booking in five main OTA showed that Yikuaiqu and Tuniu’s 5A tourist sites coverage rate increased in November 2013. Yikuaiqu’s 5A sites coverage rate went up from 41% to 56%, surpassed Ctrip and Lvmama and second only to 17u. Tuniu’s 5A sites coverage rate increased from 40% to 43%.

Online tourist sites tickets were divided into three categories: standard tickets, part of tourist sites tickets and package tickets. 17u ranked top in standard tickets, with 65 5A tourist sites which accounted for 62% of all. Yikuaiqu and Lvmama had the highest percentage of standard tickets, as high as 67%. In November, package tickets sold online kept decreasing, 17u package tickets dropped from 25% in October to 19% in November. Ctrip package tickets dropped from 23% to 22%, and Lvmama dropped from 16% to 14%.

Normally, November is the off season for tourism. However, Double 11 also created opportunities for OTA, many of them launched promotion discount products in package which stimulated consumers travelling demands, and affected their consuming habits to turn from offline to online and mobile end.

According to iResearch, China online travel market reached 58.56 billion yuan (USD 9.54 billion) in Q3 2013, 17.1% more than that of 2012. China OTA total revenue reached 3.01 billion yuan (USD 490.33 million), with a YoY increase of 12.9%.

Ctrip topped in the OTA market with 48.9%, followed by Elong and 17u. The top three OTA occupied more than 50% of the whole market.

Ctrip’s vacation packages on Qunar and its mobile-end strategy drove its growing, expanding its market share. Elong’s core business is hotel booking, the boom of Q3 travelling which led to large amount of hotel bookings brought Elong’s growth. 17u offered 9-year anniversary discount, at the same time, it launched DIY tour to stimulate market growth.

Ctrip had undergone transition from OTA (Online Travel Agency) to MTA (Mobile Travel Agency). Its Q2 finance report showed that Ctrip mobile-end occupied 20% hotel booking and 15% air ticket booking. Elong, too, had over 20% mobile hotel booking, and it official changed its online hotel into mobile hotel.

China third-party online hotel booking market reached 1.47 billion yuan (USD 239.8 million), with a 14.8% QoQ increase and a 26.7% YoY increase, according to EnfoDesk, .

Ctrip ranked the number one in third-party hotel booking market in Q3 with 40.5% share. Followed by Elong and 17u.

Ctrip and Elong’s market share increased slightly in Q3, abandoning price war and focusing on consumer experience. 17u increased its market share by making differentiation strategy and improving quality of service.

According to CTCNN, a Chinese travel industry finance media, the top 10 travel apps in September 2013 were Qunar, Ctrip, Huoli, Elong, Mafengwo, Best Tone, Tianqu, Top Trip, 17u and KingwayStudio.

Qunar ranked the top in the list, with 52.88 million download times; followed by Ctrip with 41.04 million download times. The download times of the top 9 all remained above 10 million.

Travel apps kept growing at a relatively fast speed. In comparison with August, the number of app developers whose total download times above 10 million increased 1, and those above 1 million increased 4 in September.

Elong had the fastest growing rate in September, it increased 6.85 million download times monthly. Qunar ranked the second with 5.56 million download monthly increase.

Many online travel agencies had transferred their focuses on mobile end. In the first half of 2013, 23% of Qunar’s total search came from mobile devices; and in hotel industry, 47% of total search came from mobile end. Besides, Ctrip launched mobile app version 5.0 in September. Qunar and Ctrip’s apps total download times always remained the first and second. Travel agencies are less likely to cooperate on mobile devices because of the independence of apps, in the future, the fight over mobile end would be even more fierce than online competition.

According to CTCNN, a Chinese travel industry finance media, China online travel travel agency ranking top 10 in August 2013 were Ctrip, Tuniu, 17u, Elong, Lvmama, Mangocity, Uzai, Tieyou, Tempus and Mipang.

In comparison with July, 13 OTA had a growth in user coverage in August. Ctrip had a MoM increase of 13% in August. Mangocity increased 19.7% in comparison with July, but it had a 11.6% YoY decrease. 15 OTA experienced decrease in user coverage in August. Tuniu’s user coverage dropped 1.7% monthly, however, its YoY increased 118.1%. Elong had a MoM drop of 17.7% and a YoY drop of 7.9%.

The fierce competition between OTA websites didn’t have obvious positive influence on travel market. Besides, OTA leaders tried to focus on mobile devices, it would also affect online traffic.

Ctrip, the largest online travel agency in China, has begun cooperation with its old rival Qunar which is the Chinese leading travel search engine on vacation packages recently after a long time price war and  war of words. Besides, it is said Ctrip and Qunar will further cooperate on air tickets and hotel booking.

The cooperation surprised every one because Qunar launched its Total Solution, an aggregation platform where online travel orders can be directly processed, and wanted to become an OTA which forced other online travel agencies such as Elong and 17u leaving Qunar.

Now, Elong, 17u have appeared in Qunar search results again. Ctrip has been listed in Qunar’s supplier and launched more than 20 vacation itineraries.

Ctrip shouldn’t have conflicts with Qunar, but Qunar wants to directly provide a reservation service and its TTS intercepts user data. However, Ctrip cooperated with Qunar as Taobao joined online travel market. In 2012, Ctrip led the market in air tickets and hotel booking, Taobao ranked the third in air tickets market and the fourth in hotel booking and topped in vacation reservation with 46.2%, which is a bigger threat to Ctrip than Qunar.

The OTA+vertical search business model is very appealing. Qunar could bring large traffic to Ctrip, and Qunar also needs capable suppliers like Ctrip. The cooperation doesn’t involve Qunar’s TTS, once we click on Qunar search results, it leads to Ctrip to finish the transaction.

In Q2, China online travel OTA market share was quite stable with Ctrip, Elong and 17u staying as the top three players. Ctrip topped with 48% share, followed by Elong with 9.1%, 17u with 6.5%.

Ctrip, 17u, 118114, Mangocity had advantages in air tickets booking market; Ctrip, Elong, 17u, 118114 occupied large percent of hotel booking market; Ctrip and 17u enjoyed a big share in vacation booking market. Online travel market was highly competitive, partly due to the popularity of mobile online services.

Baidu, with its widespread map service, bought Qunar shares to control air tickets booking markets; Alibaba invested in amap and qyer, etao entered online travel market as well; Tencent invested in Elong and 17u, extending its online travel business on Weixin Platform.

Compared with the online ticket and online hotel booking, online travel market is the niche field with the lowest rate of penetration but the fastest growth rate. The online vacation booking maintains steady growth every year.

Domestic travel market presents a downward trend, while outbound travel and around travel market are keeping a good development momentum.

On outbound tourism, Ctrip.com has 33.7% market share, followed by Tuniu.com and Aoyou.com.

17U.com is leading the way of the short getaway trip, accounting for 21.8% of the market share, followed by Ctrip.com and Lvmama.com.

Ctrip.com is the most popular website for domestic travel with 28.5% market share, far ahead of any other players.

The data provided by iResearch shows that China online travel market in the first quarter of 2013 kept a relatively high rate of year-on-year growth. And the total transaction sie had reached 45.27 billion yuan (about USD 7.4 billion).

The total amount of China online travel revenue was up to 2.43 bilion yuan. The fast growing of revenue is mainly due to the rapid development of online travel transaction. In addition, the price promotion from hotels and airline tickets had also contributed to the fast growth.

Ctrip is still leading the race with a market share of 47%, followed by Elong and 17u.