China’s Very Different Internet Use

[Rubber Duck]

China now has the same number of Internet users as the U.S. But people in the two countries behave totally differently online, a sign that your business may need a whole new strategy if it plans to extend its cyber reach into China.



[size=10pt][size=10pt][size=10pt]The Chinese are more likely to have a picture like this as part of their online identities[/size][/size][/size]

That’s one of the highlights of a Harris Interactive poll out today, sponsored by tech-security company Symantec, which asked 4,687 adults and 2,717 children in eight countries who use the Internet more than an hour a month about their online habits. (The U.K., Australia, Germany, France, Brazil and Japan are the others.) The survey covers ground like what children do online and what their parents think they do – surprise, there’s a difference – but what caught our eye was how dissimilar people in the two countries with the largest online populations act.

The Chinese, in general, are more likely to embrace new technologies: Seventy-eight percent of Internet users there visit social-networking sites, compared to just 47% in the U.S; 54% of Chinese respondents play online games frequently or constantly versus just 27% in the U.S.; and 56% of Chinese spend at least 10 hours a month in an online virtual world, more than nine times the 6% who do in the U.S. Additionally, 72% of Chinese say they have an “avatar,” a digital manifestation of themselves.

There’s more. About three times as many Chinese say they download or watch films online frequently or constantly (44% to 18% in the U.S.), they’re more than five times as likely to be heavy-users of online-dating services (17% to 3%, although it’ll be interesting to see how long that lasts as about twice as many Chinese men use the services as women), and 40% of Chinese Internet users own a smartphone – mobile devices that can send email and surf the Web in addition to making calls – compared to just 6% in the U.S.

Those looking for answers in why the two populations act so differently in the demographics will be disappointed. The samples are pretty similar: Slightly more males than females, a mean age of 30 for the Chinese and 39 for the Americans, and similar education levels and marital status. This is a rich topic that should be explored further, but the obvious conclusion is that the businesses hoping to reach Chinese Internet users should try using some of these technologies.

http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/02...googlenews_wsj

[Asiaplay]

Smile... no surprises really.

It does however remind me of a guy in his late teens who I met in the USA (couple of years ago) asking me... but China is still primitive isn't it and aren't half of the people still starving (when asked where he learnt this info from - he told me it was what he learnt at school a couple of years before)... so research is always good, as it is a wake-up for some people... yes, a PC and the net is common in homes in China (in the large cities at least).

However, one must look at the logic of why the difference, before using this info for business investment plans.
For example 40% for movie download - wow, my first thought is, "I better open a movie download site!!!" (what a cash cow)...
But wait... the reason why this is the case, must be reviewed as well.. in China no one is paying a cent to download virtually every copy-write movie, TV Series, song or documentary which you have ever heard of or seen.
I bet, if in USA every film was 100% free for download, that it would 40% as well... so market political dynamics need to be applied to make commercial sense of info like this... and this is the obvious one for this article.

Also true for IDN investment

Couple of comments - cheers, Asiaplay

[mulligan]

Hey .. ask anyone you meet on the street where 'Singapore' is? .. China?