China’s Internet users - demographics and statistics

July 28th, 2008

The rapid expansion of China’s domestic market is very attractive to foreign companies and investors – however, when entering the China market (in any field) your enthusiasm must be tempered with a good understanding of the risks and the very different nature of doing business in China. The demographics of Chinese consumers are also very unique. For example did you know that:

50.4 million people in China access the Internet using their mobile phones. They represent 24 percent (around one quarter) of all Internet users in China. The largest proportion of them are in Guangdong province – 14.5 million mobile phone Internet users.
Half of the Internet users (just over 100 million people) in China are aged <= 24 years old. 68 percent of the Internet users in China are aged <= 30 years old.
Only 36 percent of Internet users have attained tertiary/university education.
Students form the largest segment of Internet users: 28.8 percent
74 percent of all Internet users earn <= 2000 RMB per month (that’s about 293 US dollars per month, assuming 1 USD = 6.82 RMB). 86 percent of all Internet users earn <= 3000 RMB per month.
33.9 percent of Internet users go online at Internet cafes.
The most popular Internet applications are (starting from most popular): online music, instant messaging, online video, news, search engines, gaming and email.

I got these statistics from a survey the China Internet Network Information Center released this year. Their website is a great resource - they also have many other different kinds of statistics and information about the state of the Chinese Internet.