43 million Chinese traveled overseas in Q3 2018 according to COTRI, an increase of 10% year-on-year. A slow decline compared with the growth of 17% in Q1 and 16% in Q2.

Specifically, 20 million person-trips went to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. And, the rest 23 million person-trips went to the rest of the world. COTRI estimates China’s outbound tourism will see over 160 million person-trips in 2018.

Chinese travelers went on 40 thousand person-trips to Nepal in Q3 2018, an increase of 77% year-on-year. That totaled 110 thousand person-trips for the first three quarters of 2018. The whole figure would break the record of 123 thousand person-trips in 2014.

Chinese spent US$258 billion in outbound travel

eBay is well-known in China as a platform for exporters seeking to sell Chinese-manufactured goods abroad, but it’s easy to overlook the fact that it has another “hidden” role as an importer.

On one hand, eBay’s main website is still an important shopping platform for Chinese seeking to buy goods from abroad. On the other, it also attempts to import goods into China through other channels; for instance, in 2015 it launched a “Featured on eBay Abroad” channel on JD Global, and a third-party service provider maintained a WeChat shop called “Featured on eBay” until it was closed in 2015.

It also operates a low-profile China platform for its main e-commerce site under the domain name “haitao.ebay.com”, catering to shoppers looking to access goods from abroad.

In recent days, though, it seems that eBay intends to bulk up its importing business in China; next year, it plans to begin looking for merchants. Devin Wenig also announced progress on eBay’s China platform on November 20^th, saying that eBay had introduced local payment methods to the site.

Wenig’s announcement seems to point to a redesigned website rather than announcing a new strategy, though the latter may come as well. If you open the new eBay platform, you’ll find a redesigned layout, a mobile site, and other user-friendly aids such as one-click translation and acceptance of UnionPay. What’s still missing, though, is a mobile app.

The products on this site are still connected directly with eBay’s various national platforms, mainly from American-based sellers, including Chinese and HK residents who set up stores in the US with eBay, and relies on overseas direct mail to ship goods, unlike eBay’s American platform, where Chinese buyers can transship.

eBay isn’t a stranger to China’s import market, having launched an overseas purchase platform in 2010 to help Chinese consumers buy abroad, but after giving up on the initiative in 2012 it is rarely remembered. To say it was too forward-looking is not an excuse, but the fact remains that at the time cross-border e-commerce in China was in its infancy, at least when it came to imports.

According to statistics from China’s Ministry of Commerce, cross-border e-commerce transactions (import and export) totaled 3.1 trillion yuan (US$469.7 billion) in 2013; in 2016, that number had risen to 6.5 trillion yuan (US$984.8 billion). In Q2 2017, cross-border e-commerce imports totaled 93.82 billion yuan (US$14.21), a 17.6% rise over the previous month.

Giants such as Alibaba, JD.com, Netease Kaola, and Amazon have all entered the market one after another, followed in the 2014-15 period by many start-ups… at which point eBay was still focusing on exporters. It seems to have been involved in the import market, but not enough; the competition of the past few years has left it a late entrant, with little time to make up ground and pass its competitors. It isn’t clear how it can arrange its business in China to overtake them.

High-end retail should focus on high-value-added goods and services in China

RMB credit balance totaled 93.6 trillion yuan in 2015 with an increase of 14.9% YoY according to iResearch. Consumption credit market in China is expected to exceed 41 trillion yuan in 2019.

Mortgage remains dominant component of China’s credit market, followed by credit card and car loans.

Internet loans market exceeded 800 billion yuan in China in 2015 with an increas of 248.2% from 2014. iResearch forecasts it’s going to exceed 9 trillion yuan in 2018.

Related: China Online Payment Overview for Q2 2016

China online gaming market reached RMB 41.6 billion (US$6.24 billion) in Q2 2016, an increase of 24.2% YoY or 0.9% QoQ.

China mobile gaming market reached RMB 24.4 billion (US$3.66 bn) in Q2 2016, an increase of 120.3% YoY or 15.5% QoQ. Mobile accounted for 58.7% of China’s total online gaming market in Q2 2016.

The number of China’s newborn babies keeps a steady growth in recent years and is estimated to reach 18.08 million by 2018 according to data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

In 2012, China’s mother & baby care market had a transaction value of RMB 1.402 billion (USD 210 million) with a growth rate of 17.3%; and, it is estimated to reach 3.107 billion yuan (USD 465 million) by 2018 according to Analysys.

Babytree ranks the first place among top 10 mother & baby applications in China by the number of active users, followed by Beibei and Baobaozhidao.

China’s mother & baby communities’ user penetration rate has been increasing as of Q2 2015, which was 1.72%, and reached 2.87% in Q1 2016.

80.7% female users make up China’s mobile mother & baby care market.

Near 60% of mobile mother & baby care market was made up of 25 to 30 years old users.

The growth rate of China’s mother & baby care online retail value reached the peak with 81.1% in 2014; meanwhile, the transaction value was 156.8 billion yuan (USD 23.49 billion); and, it is estimated to reach 494.6 billion yuan (USD 74.10 billion) by 2018 with a growth rate of 26.1%.

The big demand for mother & baby care products drives China to be the second largest country of mother & baby care market, next to the United States.

China has 450 million mobile devices; and, 7,350 Chinese companies have developed over 33,000 mobile apps. China mobile usage has increased by 23% from 2014 to 2015, accounting for near 10% of the global.

Photography is the most popular apps category with a growth rate of 267% year-on-year, followed by health & fitness (128%), travel (105%) and lifestyle & shopping (103%) according to Flurry Analytics. Although the growth rate of  game applications is -18%, it is still the strong force of

Although the growth rate of  gaming apps is -18%, it is still the strong force in China’s mobile market. Niko Partners reports that mobile games now account for nearly 40% of the country’s total digital games revenue.

Phablets increases from 31% in Aug 2015 to 41% in Mar 2016, and it is estimated to over 50% by the end of 2016.

Also read: China’s mobile market analysis in Q2 2015

Momo, one of the top mobile social networking apps in China and gone public in 2014, had monthly active users of 72.3 million in Q1 2016 from 78.1 mn in Q1 2015. However, its net revenues increased by 93% year over year to $50.9 million. Momo mobile marketing revenue continued its strong momentum, growing more than 100% year over year.

Joining the live broadcasting trend of many Chinese internet companies, momo launched this business late last year. It further opened up the service to allow every individual user to broadcast live anytime, anywhere with his or her mobile device or PC.

In April 2016, Momo introduced a major update, where live broadcasting is featured as a separate tab on its mobile app, and launched a standalone application called ‘Hani’ for live broadcasting business to grow more independently.

Also read: China Social Media Users Insights in 2015

With the development of mobile internet and smartphones, users’ spending habits tend to transform to the mobile end. Companies utilized WeChat official accounts to promote products and brand. Most countries hope to reach potential consumers through WeChat OA according to WEMCB research.

China smartphone users were 519 million in 2014 accounting for about 30% of global smartphone users. The number is expected to climb to 574 million in 2015 and maintain a steady growth in the following three years.

The number of WeChat monthly active users reached 650 million as of Q3 2015. 93% citizens in tier-1 cities use WeChat where the market tend to saturate. However, WeChat users in tier-2 and tier-3 cities are expected to increase largely in the following several years.

Traditional adverting methods such as TV, newspaper and magazine are gradually replaced by new advertising methods. The growth rate of traditional media advertising has been declining and it dropped to -1.7% in 2014. However, online advertising market especially mobile advertising has maintained a strong momentum.

Social networks achieve further development in 2015. Weibo and Momo were listed early 2015 and a total number of social apps were more than 2,000 as of Q1 2015.

Among the top 5 most active social apps in May 2015, WeChat, QQ, and Momo are instant messaging apps. With users of 650 million, WeChat is the most active social app in China in 2015.

Due to large information flow and high active rate, social messaging apps attract more advertising input from advertisers in China in 2015, followed by video apps and e-commerce apps.

WeChat official accounts have exceeded 10 million in 2015 covering 400 million active users and linking companies and consumers together on the open platform. 29% WeChat OA users follow we media, 25% follow authorized media, 19% follow companies and merchants and 6% follow marketing accounts in 2015.

53% companies have invested in WeChat OA for advertising and marketing and 2% have put over 500,000 yuan on the platform. Through funds in OA, companies hope to reach potential consumers and publish product news. 45.3% companies project to transform to O2O through OA.

Among companies who have utilized WeChat OA for marketing, 20.5% have used for one year to two years. 45.2% companies have used WeChat OA for less than half year which means more companies promote through OA this year.

Companies have utilized related services to better serve for their projects. 73.1% companies open basic functions of WeChat official accounts such as official websites, H5 and customer service; 62.0% utilize active plug-ins to interact with consumers; 38.9% employ e-commerce related services such as coupons, group buying, catering, Q2Q and mobile payment; 18.9% exploit WeChat hardware such as iBeacon and Wi-Fi.

WeChat OA users mainly hope to get news and ease daily life through utilizing OA. Some 14% even want to get useful knowledge from OA. Considering for users habit, 9am to 11am and 6pm to 10pm are peak time for marketers to publish posts.

67% WeChat users shop on average of at least one good on WeChat in each month higher than 36% of Facebook. 45.6% WeChat official accounts are cosmetics in H1 2015 which means cosmetic brands pay more attention to WeChat marketing. 21.4% are food brands with 11.1 percentage points lower compared with the same period last year.

WeChat satisfies consumer demands including social communication, entertainment, O2O, news, e-commerce, finance, lifestyle and a series of services. WeChat increased City urban heat map service and friend-shared coupons and daily active users surged to 64% from 49% this year.

The penetration rate of WeChat is 76.9% in China in 2015 with the active rate of 64.4%. 55.2% WeChat users open over 10 times on average each day and use more than 10 minutes in total. 62.7% users have more than 50 friends. WeChat promote as high as 11 billion yuan consumption according to WEMCB.

Also read: The Value of WeChat Official Accounts

Overseas new users increased rapidly on Alibaba.com in 2015, particularly in Europe, America, and the Middle East. Domestic merchants on 1688.com spent much time online and CXT users spent 47 hours on average in receiving their first orders in 2015 according to Alibaba. Alibaba is predicted to keep growth in sales and users in 2016.

China e-commerce market reached 15 trillion yuan (US$2.3 trillion) in 2015 and 69% came from the B2B market. The ratio was four percentage points lower compared with 2014. As one of the leading global and domestic B2B platform, Alibaba delivered a good answer in 2015.

Alibaba.com had 1 million domestic suppliers and 250 thousand overseas suppliers. Among the 110 million buyers, over 100 million were overseas. Europe, North America, Central and North America had most buyers of Alibaba’s global B2B platform.

Alibaba.com which was the leading platform for global trade received most inquiries from America, UK, and India in 2015. America was the most important business partner of Alibaba.com in 2015.

Alibaba.com’ business developed quickly in Russia, US, and Brazil in 2015. The three countries gained most new users in the last year. Broadening e-business market and improving delivery service drove the growth.

New users in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Russia increased most quickly in 2015. New users in Europe increased by 104%, the ratio was 63% in Central and South America, 50% in Middle East, 47% in North America, and 36% in Asia. Asia and North America were the engines of Alibaba Global website’s business.

Middle East was a new emerging market of Alibaba.com in 2015. New users in Turkey, Ukraine, and Pakistan increased quickly which were the driving force of Alibaba’s business in the Middle East regions.

More users were used to shop through smartphones and tablets. China m-commerce retail market was predicted to reach US$334.0 billion in 2015. About 40% overseas users purchased on Alibaba.com through mobile devices in 2015.

1688.com, Alibaba’s domestic B2B platform, aimed to help small and medium companies do business in China. China’s small and medium corporate buyers shopped more frequently on 1688.com in 2015.

China online buyers shopped more online instead of offline shops in 2015 and over 20% were newly created demands. The number of goods shoppers bought online increased largely in 2015.

China’s online shoppers tended to pay more attention to quality rather than price and customized or processed products encountered larger demands in 2015. Users were more willing to spend money on middle and high end goods with kitchen wares as example. Price was not the only factor to attract China’s online shoppers and companies should manage to deliver quality products to the market to gain competitiveness.

More 1688.com users finished their initial order through mobile devices in China. Online shopping platforms were and should be devoted to supply better mobile user experience to improve sales.

1688.com promoted CXT service to help small and medium companies have more exposures by utilizing special marketing tools. 54.9% CXT members logged in for over eight hours every day in 2015. The ratio was 18.9 percentage points higher than 2014.

CXT users spent 47 hours on average in receiving their first order in 2015 which was less than half of 2014. New merchants could also have many opportunities on the platform.

China central and western suppliers increased quickly on 1688.com. Tier-2 and below cities and rural regions were strategically important region for 168.com and Alibaba. Alibaba has invested in domestic delivery service in less developed cities and promoted China Spring Festival Shopping Fair to boost B2B business in rural regions.

Alibaba reported revenues of 22,171 million yuan (US$3,488 million) in Q3 2015, 20,245 million yuan (US$3,265 million) in Q2 2015, and 17,425 million yuan (US$2,811 million) in Q1 2105. With exploring overseas market and domestic rural market, Alibaba is predicted to keep promising in 2016.

Also read: China Online Luxury Shoppers Insights in 2015

China’s job hunting websites reached almost 450 million monthly internet users and the number of monthly visits totaled 3 billion in Q3 2015 according to iResearch.

51job.com (hereinafter called 51job) and Zhaopin.com (hereinafter called Zhaopin) were major job hunting companies in China. Total revenues of 51job was 520 million yuan (US$80.27 million) and total revenues of Zhaopin were 350 million yuan (US$54.02 million) in Q3 2015. Influenced by the autumn busy season of job hunting, operating revenues of both companies increased slightly.

Online job hunting revenues made up about 60% of 51job revenues in Q3 2015. HR and related revenues made up about 35%. Compared with Zhaopin, 51job was relatively concentrated in revenue pattern while also more reasonable given that non-online job hunting revenues.

Revenues except online websites of Zhaopin only accounted for about 10% in Q3 2015 including campus recruitment, career assessment and HR related revenues. The ratio was much lower compared with 34.9% of 51job.

The size of China’s online employment market was stable in the past 12 months. The number of monthly coverage users reached nearly 450 million from July to September this year with a slight down in QoQ rate and YoY rate. The downturn mainly resulted from rising mobile app users.

Monthly visits of China’s employment websites remained steady across the year and the peak appeared in March 2015. Post-Chinese New Year is often a period when many employees looked for new opportunities in China. A report from 58.com said as high as 65% staff in China would change job after the Chinese New Year because of no year-end bonus.

Zhaopin has surpassed 51job in online monthly reached users since May 2015. Monthly reached users of online websites of Zhaopin were 520,000 more than 51job. The soaring number of app users was mainly driven from superior user experience on Zhaopin’s mobile app.

Major employment websites maintained stable in terms of monthly reached users on mobile apps in Q3 2015. 51job maintained a total number of monthly coverage users about 2.6 million since May 2015. Zhaopin has been steadily growing in monthly users this year.

The gap in daily reached users had gradually widened between 51job and Zhaopin mobile apps in Q3 2015. Daily reached users of 51job declined slightly in September while the total increased in Q3 2015. Daily coverage users of Zhaopin declined in Q3 while still maintained a slight growth compared with Q2 2015.

51job spent 79.9% advertising spends of nearly 700,000 yuan on Weibo and other portal websites in Q3 2015. The ratio was 2.4 percentage points higher compared with the previous quarter.

Zhaopin invested far more spends in advertising than 51job in Q3 2015. 65.9% advertising spends were made available for real estate websites with 38.6 percentage points high compared to Q2 in Q3 2015. 28.6% advertising spends were in portal websites while might be supposed that Zhaopin wouldn’t want to have direct conflicts on portal websites. Advertising channels of Zhaopin were more diverse compared with 51job.

Looking for jobs through job hunting websites has become an avoidable trend. Compared to traditional job fairs, online employment websites are more efficient and less costly. Especially for university graduates, blindly sending resumes always had no effect.

Also read: China’s Talents in Internet Industry 2015

Year 2015 is almost over; let’s recall some of the top keywords for China internet that got so much attention in the world: outbound tourism, cross-border online shopping, mobile, WeChat, Tmall…

Here are the most popular CIW articles in 2015:

1. Baidu, Sogou among Top 5 Biggest Search Engines in the World. eMarketer estimated that in 2015, the total spend of digital advertising in the world will exceed US$170.85 billion according to its report released on 31 March 2015. Baidu and Sohu ranked the second and fourth respectively in the top 5 biggest search engines by revenue in 2014.

Also read: China Search Engine Market Share, and China’s Mobile Search Market

2. China E-commerce Market Overview. In Q1 2015, the total transaction value of China e-commerce market exceeded RMB3.48 trillion (USD$567.49 billion) with an increase of 10.1% YoY and 23.8% QoQ. In accordance with China B2B market and online shopping market in Q1 2015, e-commerce market had slowed its YoY growth. Besides, it is now evolving into a new stage.

• China Online Cosmetics Market Overview
• China Online Shopping Accounted for over 10% of Total Retail
• 10 Charts to Tell You Almost Everything About Alibaba Group
• Stats of Top Selling Brands on Taobao/Tmall in 18 Categories in Sep 2014
• How Japanese AV Idol Sora Aoi Sells on China Social Media
• China Top 100 E-Commerce Companies in Q3 2015

3. Wechat Launched Wechat Contacts App Offering Free Calls.  Wechat released a Wechat Contacts app as an enhancement to smartphones’ existing contacts.

• How Wechat Users Search For Public Accounts
• China Social Media Users Insights in 2015
• WeChat, Weibo or Alipay? Who Won Hongbao War in 2015?
• WeChat & Weibo Users Most Active Social Shoppers in the World
• Wechat 5.0 Public Account Operation Guide
• 20 Charts on WeChat Shopping Market
• How WeChat Drives Viral Marketing of Local Specialities
• The Value of WeChat Official Accounts
• WeChat to Launch Themed Campaign on China Children’s Day
• WeChat Daily Active Users Reached 570 Mln in Sep 2015

3.  China B2B E-commerce Market in Q1 2015. China B2B e-commerce market reached RMB 5.48 billion (USD 883 million) in Q1 2015, an decrease of 1.6% QoQ according to Analysis International.

4. China Female Online Shopper Insights 2015. Shoes and bags accounted for 27.3% of all the categories of online products, being the best selling product category. Cosmetics ranked the third, which showed female online shopping is booming in China.

5. China Mobile Social Networking Users to Reach 335.9 Mln in 2015. The number will continue grow and by 2019, users will exceed 480.4 million, representing 34.8% of total population.

6. 80% China’s Mobile Users Rooted Smartphones in 2014 Compared with traditional channels to download ROM, ROM official website is more resourceful and categorized. 36.4% respondents would like to download on official websites in 2014. However, there were fewer smartphone users downloading ROM from online communities.

• The Secrets Of Xiaomi Marketing Success in China
• China Top 100 Mobile Apps in July 2015
• 70% App Downloads From Mobile App Stores in China
• China Mobile Internet Insights in H1 2015

7.  Rise of the China Outbound Tourism. China outbound tourists on average spent RMB 20,000 (US$3,252) during travel per person and shopping is an important part of their spend in oversea trips (57.8%).

• China Tourists Travel Intention Study 2015
• Chinese Luxury Traveler Insights 2015
• China, the Largest Outbound Tourism Market in 3 Consecutive years
• China to Be the Largest Business Travel Market Worldwide in 2016
• China Online Accommodation Booking Market in Q3 2015
• China Online Travel Market Overview in Q3 2015

Last but not least, we wish you a Happy New Year with the hope that you will have many blessings in the year to come!

China’s online video market reached 11.53 billion yuan (US$1.90 billion) with a growth of 31.9% QoQ and 62.7% YoY in the third quarter of 2015 according to iResearch. Online video advertising accounted for 56.3% of the total online video revenues, among which 39.9% of 2.59 billion yuan (US$0.40 billion) were from mobile.

China’s online video market maintained a high growth rate in the third quarter of 2015 although the GDP slowed down. 56.3% China’s online video revenues came from the online advertising for 6.49 billion yuan (US$1.01 billion), 8.4 percentage points lower than the ratio of Q2 2015. Although online video advertising remained a dominant revenue source, non-advertising sources such as video value-added service revenues and others increased slightly.

Copyright distribution declined in the third quarter of 2015 compared to the previous quarter this year while video value-added service revenues increased slightly. Online video companies should make deeper research on users’ preference and make the video products more catered to consumers to improve non-advertising revenues.

China’s online video advertising market in Q3 2015 increased by 14.8% compared to the previous quarter this year and 56.1% compared to the same period last year. Overall, China online video advertising market has entered a stable growth period thus online video companies should provide a richer and more accurate video marketing services for advertisers to maintain a high growth rate.

2.59 billion yuan (US$0.40 billion) video advertising revenues were from mobile, accounting for 39.9% of the overall online advertising market and 22.5% of the overall online video market. The mobile video advertising market only made up 24.2% in the third quarter of 2014 and 35.4% in the second quarter of 2015. With further development of mobile internet and mobile services, video advertising on the mobile terminal will maintain a steady growth.

Also read: China Online Advertising Insights Q3 2015

China’s mobile internet users reached 901 million as of September of 2015 according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The mobile e-mail users in China have reached 250 million based on the latest report of WPS.

64% e-mail users are used to use e-mail on desktop computers. However, by the further expansion of the mobile internet and smartphones, more people tend to use mobile phones to contact with friends, read news and even work that 56% e-mail users prefer utilizing mobile mailbox every day.

Business mailbox is one of the major reasons of people to open e-mail every day. Business e-mail users in China receive an average of 20 e-mails and send 2 to 3 e-mails every day. Enterprise e-mail users are mainly companies operating the internet, finance, sales and the like as well as some large state-owned enterprises. Mobile business mailbox users almost spend one-fourth of their working hours on mobile mailbox apps.

College students and white collars are major users of personal e-mails in China. In general, a majority of private mailbox users will open once to twice every day although they have two or even more e-mail accounts. College students and white collars who need to apply for jobs or change jobs receive an average of ten e-mails every day and six from online recruitment websites.

Men accounts for 70% of mobile e-mail users and women only 30%. Female mobile e-mail users usually manage e-mails during 9am to 10am while male users are used to handling e-mails at night.

More than 20% users will read through the e-mails to search for news and the average usage time has increased by 50% according to WPS. 15% users check their mailboxes in the subway, 10% will open the mobile e-mail accounts before going to sleep, and 9% even use the mobile apps in the bathroom.

Men aged from 25 to 35 years old play the dominant role among mobile e-mail users. The post-70s don’t use mobile e-mails very often. Only the post-90s who will apply for jobs use mailboxes every day. The post-70s prefer to use 163 Email accounts and Yahoo Email. The post-80s like to use 163 Email, QQ Email, and Gmail. The post-90s are more likely to use QQ Email and Gmail. Mobile mailboxes are most popular in Guangdong, Beijing, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Liaoning. QQ Email, 163 Email, Sina Mail, Gmail and Hotmail are popular private mailboxes:

• QQ Postbox: mainly for students, white collars and people not using the internet too much, mostly for entertainment and everyday communication;
• 163 Postbox & Sina Mail: mainly for individual and business contacts;
• Gmail: users are more likely proficient in networking and computer applications;
• Hotmail: mainly for MSN white-collars.

Also read: China’s Mobile Internet Insights Q1-Q3 2015

Mobile payment has penetrated into every part of daily life in China such as online shopping, taking a taxi, supermarkets and food delivery in particular. About 70% Chinese internet users have ordered foods in a month and about 70% would pay on mobile according to DCCI. Alipay, WeChat Payment and Baidu Wallet have become the payment apps with the highest usage frequency.

45.8% of female internet users and 47.5% of male users ordered foods in 2014 in China according to iResearch, and more Chinese will use the food delivery service with the ever-improving food delivery market in the future.

Only 26.9% would rather pay cash on delivery and 73.1% users will pay online, among which 91.7% tend to pay on smartphones and 8.3% on the PC end. Alipay, WeChat Payment, and Baidu Wallet lead the mobile payment market becoming most frequently used mobile payment instruments.

Daily active users of WeChat totaled 570 million in China in September 2015 according to Tencent, and WeChat payment users are expected to increase by 7% in the next few months. Baidu Wallet is also promising by connecting with large profitable activities and various services with Baidu such as Baidu Library and Baidu Post Bar. However, Alipay may not attract more users considering its high penetration rate.

Alipay is convenient and simple to operate while Baidu Wallet is more secure and preferential. White-collars prefer Baidu Wallet, and second-tier city Chinese users like Baidu Wallet and Alipay better.

Chinese use mobile payment an average of 2 to 4 times a week that mobile payment has become the most commonly used method except bank cards and cash. DCCI report shows that in 2017, Chinese mobile payment users will be expected to be close to 400 million, representing an increase of about 80% compared with the previous year.

China’s food delivery market achieved over 160 billion yuan (US$25.11 billion), accounting for by 5.8% of the overall catering market, and this proportion will be expected to increase to 9% of over 300 billion yuan (US$49.09) in 2017.

Also read: China Offline Mobile Payment Insights in 2015

Women are born to love shopping. However, more male shoppers shop online than the female in China according to research data from Nielsen.

China’s online shopping male consumers account for 55% and female 45% in 2015. Over 79% consumers are highly educated; undergraduates, graduates, and even masters. China online shoppers with monthly incomes of no less than 8,000 yuan accounted for 81% of the total.

China’s e-commerce market totaled 13.369 trillion yuan (US$2.107 trillion) in 2014 and was expected to increase by 42.1% to US$672.01 billion in 2015 estimated by eMarketer. By the end of 2015, China’s e-commerce retail sales are expected to make up over 40% of global e-commerce retail sales.

Pursuant to rapid penetration of internet and smartphones, China’s online shoppers increased to 557 million in 2014, mobile shopping users 361 billion and online payment users 304 million. By 2020, China’s internet users are expected to reach 80% of the total population and 70% of them would shop online.

Online shopping users in rural areas grew by 40.6% in China and the urban by only 16.9% in 2014. However, online shopping usage rate in rural areas is still as low as 43.2%, compared to 60.4% in urban areas.

Online travel market has the largest transaction in China e-commerce market, followed by digital products market. Mothercare products are bought most frequent online by parents. 68% of online shoppers would search for goods online during weekends; 55% of users may add products to their shopping carts after dinner. The average family number of shoppers is 3.2 persons and over 60% of users are married.

Hangzhou, the capital city of Zhejiang province and headquarter of Alibaba, hosts over one-third of China’s e-commerce websites. By the end of 2015, Hangzhou is expected to generate 100 billion service revenues and create 600,000 jobs for China.

Small and less-developed cities and rural areas are regarded as new growth opportunities by many e-commerce companies. For example, Alibaba has invested 10 billion yuan (US$15.76 billion) targeting rural areas.

Also read: China E-commerce Market to Reach US$3.8 Trillion in 2018

Chinese mothers spend one-third of their online time on shopping in 2015 according to CTR Market Research. In comparison, Chinese moms’ time on social media is only one third as much as on Online.

About 85.7% mothers in China buy baby’s products online. The majority of them received high education with high income so that they could get relatively high quality goods by shopping online, especially shopping overseas goods. About 91.3% mothers buy baby’s products offline.

Expenditure mothers spend offline shopping (55.7%) is not much more than online (44.3%). In China, over 16 million infants are born every year and the number of infants aged 0 to 3 years is more than 70 million. Chinese mothercare products market has a huge potential and bright future considering the Chinese government has just allowed two children for each family.

63.1% Chinese internet users will shop online this year, which is more than 400 million people estimated by eMarketer. By 2020, the number of Chinese internet users is expected to reach 80% of the total population, and 70% of them would shop online.

Transaction value of China’s mothercare products on the online shopping platforms reached 190.24 billion yuan (US$29.67 billion) in the first half of 2015, and more male shoppers bought mothercare products than female since 2014.

Also read: China Mobile Shopping Turnover Surpassed PC in Q2 2015

China’s personal care online shopping market included goods as oral hygiene products, hair care products, body care products, facial cleaning products, cosmetics, perfumes, etc. Transaction values of China’s personal care online shopping market was 206.88 billion yuan (US$32.60 billion) in H1 2015.

C2C sales accounted for 75.3% which still pioneered e-commerce models. Various subdivisions of personal care products and advantage in price gradually attracted more offline personal care consumers shopping online.

Tmall and Jingdong respectively accounted for 48.4% and 21.8% of B2C personal care online shopping market. As the largest domestic B2C platform, Tmall could attract more consumers with overwhelming advantages; Jingdong, the fourth largest internet company in China which was only next to Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, gained returns after category expansion strategy and large advertising placement.

With the rapid development of China’s economy and rising living standards, China has become one of the world’s largest personal care market. Relying on the huge internet population and improving consciousness of health, personal care online shopping market would have better development opportunities.

Also read: China’s Mobile Market Analysis in Q2 2015

China’s mobile internet users reached 657 million and smartphone users 601 million in Q2 2015 according to iiMedia. Smartphone penetration in China is expected to reach 38.6% by the end of 2015 and mobile apps is becoming an important part of Chinese life.

Nearly 58.7% of the Chinese Android smartphone users downloaded apps from third-party app stores. Other important download channels are app stores of smartphone vendors, app stores of system operating vendors and app stores of operating vendors. Only a small amount of users will download apps from websites. Users of iOS usually download from App Stores.

Active users of third-party mobile app stores in Q2 2015 increased to 428 million, with growth of 1.9% compared with the previous quarter. Users of third-party app stores kept a steady growth momentum although the growth rate slows down.

360 Mobile Guard ranks first in terms of total number of active users, followed by Myapp and Baidu Mobile Assistant. Xiaomi app store is also popular, especially among MIUI and Xiaomi users. Stores with high profile, variety of apps and security insurance are key factors to attract more users.

In terms of popularity of various types of mobile apps in China, the Chinese smartphone users prefer instant messaging and social communication apps, followed by news apps and music apps.

App update frequency by developers could reflect the number of active users and the competitiveness. About 14.3% apps are updated once longer than six months which means users aren’t a lot and may not be further maintained.

Tencent News, TouTiao, Netease News and Sohu News are major channels for Chinese to get news information. The post-90s, post-80s and post-70s are the majority of mobile app readers.

By Q2 2015, China’s music apps users reached 423 million with a growth rate of 2.7%. Kugou Music and QQ music win in music apps market with their high publicity and large song lists. Music apps are not used as frequently as news apps.

Taxi-calling apps are the most frequently used amongall car-calling apps for the lower cost. Users who prefer to get a better experience are more likely to use carpooling apps. The average fare of 78.2% taxi trips is less than 50 yuan (US$7.85) while only 24.9% of carpooling is less than 50 yuan. About 36.8% of carpooling costs is between 50 yuan to 100 yuan (US$15.70).

China mobile video app market is basically the same with the online market. Active users of music apps reachED 368 million with a growth rate of 3.1%. A matured online video market of Youku, iQIYI, Tencent Video, PPTV and Sohu Video has been established. Other apps in total accounted for only 18.1% of market share.

China’s mobile gaming users reached 10.85 billion yuan in Q2 2015, with 491 million users. Mobile apps couldn’t process too much storage and a majority of existing apps are puzzle games.

China’s app market still has a large room for development. At present, advertising and value-added services are the two most important profit channels for developers. However, the average usage period of apps is only ten months and about 85% apps are uninstalled within a month, especially social communication apps, which makes it hard for developers to gain profits. Developers should avoid invasion of users’ privacy and improve performance to attract more users.

Also read: China’s Mobile Search Market Insights in Q3 2015