The brand recognition of HarmonyOS has been steadily increasing year by year. From 50% in February 2021, it has risen to 85% in June of this year.

Currently, more than 700 million Harmony ecosystem devices are in use. These devices include smartphones, wearables, car cockpits, smart screens, tablets, smart home, headphones, and more.

In addition, the number of HarmonyOS developers has exceeded 2.2 million, with API calls reaching 59 billion times per day.

Regarding multi-device collaboration, there has been a 32% growth in fitness and health recording, and mobile application downloads have increased by more than 33%.

It is reported that Huawei began planning its proprietary operating system “HarmonyOS” in 2012 and officially released HarmonyOS in August 2019. After several iterations, HarmonyOS has gradually been applied to Huawei products such as smartphones, TVs, watches, and intelligent cockpits.

Huawei’s focus on HarmonyOS is a significant aspect of its strategy to create a complete ecosystem beyond smartphones. By covering various types of devices, such as wearables, car systems, and smart home appliances, HarmonyOS aims to provide a seamless user experience across the spectrum of everyday technologies.

The increase in brand recognition and the vast number of devices operating on HarmonyOS signal a positive trend for Huawei’s ambitions. With a growing developer community and a clear increase in application downloads, Harmony’s ecosystem seems to be maturing.

These achievements are essential for Huawei, particularly as international tensions and restrictions have impacted its operations in several markets. The development and success of HarmonyOS can give the company more control over its technology and reduce its dependence on foreign operating systems.

The latest updates shared during the Huawei Developer Conference 2023 mark a new milestone in the growth of HarmonyOS.

With significant advancements in multi-device collaboration and a surge in the developer community, Harmony is positioning itself as a comprehensive and versatile operating system. The continued expansion of Harmony’s ecosystem will likely play a crucial role in shaping Huawei’s future, strengthening its presence in various technological domains.

GSMA has a very exciting programme lined up for Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2018. While showcasing the latest developments in mobile, this year’s event will offer attendees a wide range of experiences through the conference, the exhibition and specialized programmes such as Women4Tech, 4YFN and beyond.

The GSMA announced several additional keynote speakers for Mobile World Congress Shanghai, with executives from leading mobile operators, infrastructure providers and other companies across the broad mobile ecosystem. Recently confirmed speakers include:

• Sabeen Ali, Founder and CEO, AngelHack
• Thaddeus Arroyo, CEO, AT&T Business
• Liu Aili, President and COO, China Telecom
• Borje Ekholm, President and CEO, Ericsson
• Eric Xu, Rotating Chairman, Huawei
• Greg Wyler, Founder and Executive Chairman, OneWeb

The GSMA also introduced a new element for this year’s Mobile World Congress Shanghai: the Leaders Stage. The Leaders Stage programme is open to Mobile World Congress Shanghai attendees holding VIP, Gold or All Exhibition Passes, and will explore wide-ranging trends that are shaping the mobile future and impacting citizens’ everyday lives. Executives participating in the Leaders Stage include:

• Nicole Richards, Catalyst, Dovetailed
• Kirti Lad, Executive Director, Meraki Executive Search & Consulting
• Jingyi Yu, CEO, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Plex-VR Digital Technology
• Bessie Lee, CEO and Founder, Withinlink

For further details on the conference programme, including the agenda and confirmed speakers, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/conference-programmes/

Women4Tech Summit at Mobile World Congress Shanghai

The GSMA announced the first speakers for the Women4Tech Summit, which will be held Thursday, 28 June at the Leaders Stage. The Women4Tech Summit will bring together senior-level speakers and panellists to discuss how to ensure gender equality in mainstream work environments and share strategic advice on broadening gender diversity in mobile and related industries.

The Summit will highlight topics around women’s role in empowering, encouraging, transforming and innovating in technology. The first confirmed Women4Tech keynote speakers and panellists include:

• Nicole Peng, Senior Director, Mobility, Canalys
• Åsa Tamsons, EVP and Head of Emerging Business, Ericsson
• Azita Arvani, Head of Innovation Partner & Venture Management, Nokia
• Anna Yip, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, SmarTone
• Mary Clark, CMO and EVP Product, Synchronoss

Additional Women4Tech activities include a speed coaching and networking session, activities at 4YFN and Women4Tech Asia Mobile (AMO) Awards for Outstanding Achievement Asia Industry Leadership, among others. For more information on the Women4Tech Programme at Mobile World Congress Shanghai, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/experiences/gsma-women4tech/.

New Developments in 4 Years From Now (4YFN)

4YFN returns to Asia for the third year, highlighting key technology trends and exploring disruptive innovation with a comprehensive programme for startups, investors and corporations. 4YFN offers unique connecting initiatives, including custom networking activities, inspirational talks, technical workshops, community outreach and the 4YFN Summit.

For 2018, 4YFN is located in the NEXTech Hall, which puts the spotlight on next-generation technologies, products and experiences. Exhibitors at 4YFN include Daejeon Information & Culture Industry Promotion Agency (DICIA), Korea Institute of Startups & Entrepreneurship Development (KISED), Qualcomm Technologies and Shanghai Technology Innovation Center, among others.

Leading venture capital and investment organisations including DCM Ventures, IBM Venture Capital Group, Legend Capital, Telefónica Open Future, Telstra Ventures and others will participate in the 4YFN Founders and Investors Programme and 4YFN Summit.

Executives confirmed to speak in the 4YFN Summit taking place 27-29 June include Minette Navarrete, President, Kickstart, Globe Telecom; David Tang, Managing Partner, Nokia Growth Partners; and Volker Heistermann, Managing Director, Yushan Ventures. For more information about 4YFN, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/4yfn.

The Asia Mobile Awards will also showcase 4YFN with the “4YFN Best Startup of the Year Award”, which recognises organisations focused on accelerating business development and the investment of new technologies within the startup community. The winner of this award will be featured on the Leaders Stage and will receive a free stand at 4YFN Barcelona 2019.

The winner will have the opportunity to participate in acceleration, mentoring and investment programmes with 4YFN, including the accelerator programme of BGTA, a London-based accelerator with operations in China and the 4YFN Award Partner. For more information about 4YFN Asia Mobile Awards, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/conference-programmes/asia-mobile-awards-2018/2018-categories/.

droidcon Comes to Mobile World Congress Shanghai

The GSMA will partner with Beijing Changfeng Information Technology Industry Alliance & Mobile Seasons GmbH to bring droidcon to Mobile World Congress Shanghai. Started in Berlin in 2009, droidcon is the premier global community of over 25,000 developers worldwide. droidcon is designed to provide an open platform for Android development engineers, users and entrepreneurs to share technology advances, development experience and innovation practices. droidcon Shanghai 2018 will be held in the NEXTech Theatre in the NEXTech Hall (Hall W5), alongside the Device City, AR/VR/MR Zone and 4YFN.

New Exhibitors and Event Partners Confirmed

The GSMA confirmed several new regional pavilions in the exhibition, including Enterprise Ireland, Russian Export Center JSC and Shanghai Technology Innovation Centre, as well as the Korea pavilion featuring Daegu Digital Industry Promotion Agency (DIP), Daejeon Information & Culture Industry Promotion Agency (DICIA), Gwangju Information & Culture Industry Promotion Agency (GITCT), Korea Association for ICT Promotion (KAIT), Korea Information & Communication Technology Industry Association (KICTA) and Korea Institute of Startups and Entrepreneurship Development.

Elsewhere in the exhibition, Eyesight, Onstar and Volkswagen will explore the intersection of mobile and automotive in the AutoTech Zone. Exhibitors including Dozen, Gowild and others will be showcasing the latest developments in artificial intelligence (AI) in the AI Zone, while 263 Mobile, Acoustics and ZTE Welink will demonstrate the technologies and applications shaping the Internet of Things (IoT) in the IoT Zone. For more information on the exhibition, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/exhibition/.

As always, the GSMA Innovation City will be a major highlight of the show, enabling attendees to experience technology in context and see how mobile-connected products and services can improve their daily lives. Continental and Zhejiang Panshi Information Technology become the latest companies to participate in the Innovation City, alongside previously announced partners BICS, Huawei, myFC and SI-Tech Information Technology. For more information, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/exhibition/gsma-innovation-city/.

MWC Shanghai Tours Offer Focused Experiences

To help attendees better navigate Mobile World Congress Shanghai, the GSMA is offering four different tours of the SNIEC, led by industry experts. The MWC Shanghai Tours will focus on topics including 5G & NFV, Artificial Intelligence, Consumer Tech and IoT, and will provide experiences that are tailored to meet attendees’ individual business objectives and requirements. For more information on MWC Shanghai Tours and registration, please visit www.mwcshanghai.com/experiences/mwc-shanghai-tours/.

Register and Get Involved at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2018

Registration for Mobile World Congress Shanghai is now open. For more information on Mobile World Congress Shanghai, including how to attend, exhibit, partner or sponsor, visit www.mwcshanghai.com. Follow developments and updates on Mobile World Congress Shanghai through our social media channels – follow us on Twitter at @GSMA and use #MWCS18, get regular updates through our LinkedIn Showcase Page at www.linkedin.com/company/mobile-world-congress-shanghai, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mwcshanghai. In China, you can follow us on Sina Weibo http://weibo.com/mwcshanghai or search “GSMA_MWCS” in WeChat.

CIW, as our media partner, offers its audience an AEP (worth $75) registration code FEPQWRNEUM that you use to register.

WeChat launched rewarded video ads platform for mini-games

Xiaomi filed an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong on May 3, 2018, becoming the first technology corporation to use Hong Kong’s new rule, i.e. dual-class shares, for going public.

The filing is expected to raise at least US$ 10 billion and value the company at between US$100-120 billion, making it the largest IPO since Alibaba in New York.

According to the IPO filing, Xiaomi’s revenue grew 167.5% from 68.43 billion yuan in 2016 to 114.64 billion yuan in 2017.

Xiaomi’s operating profits reached 12.22 billion yuan in 2017, an increase of 222.7% year-on-year. Xiaomi made a net loss of 43.9 billion yuan in 2017, down from 0.49 billion yuan profit a year earlier.

In 2017, Xiaomi derived nearly 70.3% of its revenue from smartphones, which was 80.56 billion yuan. Revenue derived from IOT (internet of things) and lifestyle products reached 23.45 billion yuan, accounting for 20.5% of the total. Revenue derived from internet service was 9.9 billion yuan, accounting for 8.6% of the total.

In terms of sales volume and average selling prices of Xiaomi smartphone, Xiaomi sold 66.546, 55.419, and 91.41 million smartphones respectively from 2015 to 2017. The average selling price of a Xiaomi smartphone was 807.2 yuan, 879.9 yuan, and 881.3 yuan respectively from 2015 to 2017.

As of 31 March 2018, Xiaomi has developed 38 10-million-MAU and 18 50-million-MAU mobile apps including Xiaomi App Store, Xiaomi Browser, Xiaomi Music, and Xiaomi Videos. On average, a Xiaomi user spends about 4.5 hours on the smartphone.

Check out China mobile app user insights 2018

China smartphone market declined 15.7% year-over-year (YoY) in Q4 2017 and 4.9% for the whole of 2017 according to IDC.

Apple’s share increased YoY and QoQ in Q4 2017. Although the iPhone X was available in short supply initially at launch in early November 2017, the supply constraints for this model eased towards the end of the quarter. Apple’s ASP increased by 23.9% YoY in 2017Q4 largely due to the shipments of the iPhone X. Apple alone made up 85% of the overall shipments in >US$600 premium segment.

Huawei appears on the radar to compete with Apple in the >US$600 premium segment. Huawei grew in Q4 2017 largely due to the strong shipment for both its Honor and Huawei branded phones in the US$600 premium segment still remains low, it has grown from making up 2% of the shipments in this segment in 2016Q4 to 8% in Q4 2017. With its Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro series being quite popular, Huawei will be a potential competitor to Apple in the >US$600 premium segment in China.

With Samsung’s continued troubles in the China market, Huawei has successfully managed to break into the high-end Android vendor space, although price points of the flagship Huawei phones are carefully priced lower than the iPhone prices at launch.

OPPO and vivo are focusing more on the mid-range segment, with a higher share of their portfolio focused on the mid-range segment compared to a year ago. The reduction in the number of OPPO and vivo models in the low-end segment also contributed to their YoY decline in Q4 2017.

While focusing more on the mid-range segment has hurt its overall shipment growth, OPPO and Vivo’s overall ASPs have increased YoY. In terms of revenue, OPPO ranked second to Apple and was above Huawei. vivo follows at fourth place. Thus, while OPPO’s shipments may have declined, it is growing in terms of its overall revenue.

China smartphone users: iPhone vs Android

The Big Picture of Mobility: 2017 Deloitte China Mobile Consumer Survey is an online survey conducted by Deloitte China TMT industry during the past five years. The survey focuses on consumer behaviors, trends, and opinions regarding a broad range of wireless and mobility products and services.  

Aiming to explore the level of applications, devices and support, this survey covers several recent hot topics such as the content consumption, mobile payment, digital devices, data security, biometrics and internet of things (IoT) in order to reveal the key trends that drive the mobile markets and to provide suggestions for relevant enterprises.

Smartphones will still remain dominant

• The mobile phone has surpassed tablets and other digital devices in ownership rate, and vastly exceeded emerging digital products represented by smartwatch and smart bracelet in this regard.
• The smartphone’s success in the future is likely to be the introduction of an array of innovations that are largely invisible.

Machine Learning (ML) will be fitted as standard in phones

• AI chips will be fitted as standard in smartphones, and the amount of machine learning-based applications is expected to steadily increase.
• With smartphones becoming an increasingly viable deployment option for ML, the spectrum of potential scenarios is expanding.

Fingerprint authentication marks the password-free era

• Fingerprint authentication has become a standard configuration of smartphones, exceeding password as the main way of unblocking smartphones.
• At the moment, nearly seventy percent of smartphones are with fingerprint authentication function. Full coverage will be achieved in the future and more usage scenarios of fingerprint authentication will appear.

Consumers attach more importance to the phone storage space

• The consideration of necessity and storage space will become major factors that affect the number of Apps installed. In view of this, App differentiation is likely to be the new ground for the development of mobile phone applications.

The self-introspection of mobile phone addicts should arouse attention 

• Consumers are trying to limit their phone usage to prevent live and work from being occupied, while smartphones utilization will continue to rise given the increasingly assembled function embedded in smartphones.

Physical stores and online stores will keep the back-and-forth relationship

• The physical stores are showing signs of revival since the consumers focus more on the product experience, brand, and innovation etc.
• Online stores are losing price advantages and will experience a slowing growth in the future.

The outlook of wearable devices and IoT devices are still unclear

• Due to the price issue as well as low intelligence degree, IoT equipment will keep low ownership rate in short time and will mainly focus on entertainment products.

Mobile video will encourage the data traffic consumption

• The video contents are popular and the demand of consumers for data traffic will further increase. Hence the core position of data traffic services in the whole business of operators will be further deepened.

Personal information leakage becomes the new normal 

• Driven by economic interest, enterprises collect and reveal consumer information, which causes the frequent leakage of personal information and arouses consumer attention on such behavior of enterprises.

Log in to see the hidden charts.

Total monthly active users of China’s short video platforms grew to 244 million in Q3 2017 according to data from Analysis. The daily active users is close to 86 million.

Short video content recommendation and aggregation platforms also grew to 72 million MAU with close to 22 million DAU in Q3 2017.

On average, an short video platform user launches the application about 51 times per day, down from 61 in July 2017. The average usage time also dropped to 6.64 minutes per day.

Similarly for short video aggregation platforms, the launch frequency and usage time both dropped across the third quarter of 2017.

The top short video platforms in China by usage penetration are Miaopai, Kuaishou, iXigua, Meipai,and Tudou.com.

Demographic profile of short video users in China in Q3 2017

Check out China video advertising market here.

NetEase rose to the second place right after Tencent in November 2017 by total number of iOS app downloads with two mobile games, Knives Out and Rules of Survival according to App Annie.

Tencent remains the biggest iOS app publisher by total downloads in Nov 2017 with a total number of 445 apps, followed by NetEase (248 iOS apps), Alibaba Group (154 apps), and Baidu (190 apps).

Tencent is also the top iOS publisher by total revenues, followed by NetEase, OneSmile, and Baidu.

The top 10 iOS apps by total download in Nov 2017 are Knives Out, WeChat, Taobao, Alipay, Baidu, QQ, Tencent Video, Rules of Survival, iQiyi, and Honour of Kings.

The top 10 iOS apps by total revenues are Honour of Kings, Fantasy Westward Journey, Tencent Video, Kwai (one of the most popular short-video apps full of entertaining content), Westward Journey Online, Ghost, Onmyoji, King of Chaos, iQiyi, and Archangel Sword H5. All are gaming apps except the three video apps (Tencent Video, Kwai, and iQiyi).

China smartphone market in Q3 2017; 4 out of 10 using Huawei or iPhone

Leading smartphone brands have tightened their grip of urban China market. In the three months ending October 2017, the top five brands – Huawei (including sub-brand Honor), Xiaomi, Apple, Vivo and OPPO – made up 91% of smartphone sales in urban China, compared to 79% a year earlier, according to the latest smartphone OS data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

China, a market once overrun with new challengers, is maturing.

“Chinese challenger brands like Meizu, LeTV, Coolpad, ZTE, and Lenovo were once on the same trajectory as like of Xiaomi, but any momentum they once had has abruptly stopped, with many struggling to get past a 1% share,” said Dominic Sunnebo, Global Business Unit Director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “Samsung’s performance in China continues to deteriorate, with its share now down to just 2.2% of that market.”

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech carries out monthly panel surveys among Chinese urban mobile phone users to monitor the market share changes of various brands. In China, the panel size is 22,000. Panellists were recruited from tier-1 to 5 cities and each year more than 260,000 surveys were conducted. The nature of the research methodology means it can cover the influence of smartphones sold in other countries ended up in China and avoid the confusion caused by unsold phones stocked at warehouses of distributors.

Digging deeper into the data, we can see that Xiaomi and Honor both realized significant growth in August – October period. Xiaomi’s sales market share jumped to 20.1%, 1 percentage point higher than in the May – July circle. However, due to its previously lacklustre performance, currently only 13.8% of all urban smartphone users are using Xiaomi, 2.1 percentage points lower than a year ago.

Honor’s share was 11.7% in August – October, also 1 percentage point higher than in May – July circle. Among all urban smartphone users, 9.8% are using Honor, 1.3 percentage points higher than a year ago.

Among the top 20 best-selling models during August – October period, eight are from Xiaomi or Honor.

Even though “price” is the biggest advantage of both brands when people making their purchasing decision, Xiaomi and Honor have both managed to achieve higher selling prices. Between August and October, the average selling price of Xiaomi models is 1,640.32 yuan, 321.96 yuan higher than a year ago; that of Honor phones is 2,136.66 yuan, 506.53 yuan higher than a year ago.

It’s a bittersweet period for Apple. Urban China remained a bright spot for Apple, with its share edging up 0.5 percentage point in the latest three months to reach 17.4%.

But globally, iOS share fell in key markets, making clear the impact of the flagship iPhone X not being available to buy in the month of October.

Dominic said: “It was somewhat inevitable that Apple would see volume share fall once we had a full comparative month of sales taking into account the non-flagship iPhone 8 vs. the flagship iPhone 7 from 2016. This decrease is significant and puts pressure on the iPhone X to perform.

“Considering the complete overhaul that the iPhone X offers, consumers may be postponing their purchase decisions until they can test the iPhone X and decide whether the higher price, compared to the iPhone 8, is worth the premium to them,” he said.

He added: “As of October 2017, 35.3% of Apple’s installed base customers across Europe and the United States had owned their iPhones for more than two years – up from 30.1% a year earlier and signifying considerable pent-up demand within Apple’s base. In pure value terms, it is likely the iPhone X average selling price will more than make up for a dip in sales of older iPhone models.”

China smartphone market in Q3 2017; 4 out of 10 using Huawei or iPhone

WeChat now hosts more than 14 million WeChat official accounts, used by companies, retailers, and brands to interact with the public.

A team from Shanghai Jiaotong University analyzed data collected between February and April of 2017 to glean more information about how users interact with these accounts and how companies use them.

98% of WeChat official accounts are subscription readers. Official accounts most commonly publish information about companies and content related to people’s lives.

About 5.4 million WeChat official accounts published at least once in the past three days; and, 38% of users are active. 1,917 accounts have published at least one post that generated at least 100,000 views, accounting for 0.01% of total.

6.99% accounts have published at least one article that has at least 1,000 views. The vast majority don’t have a single post which has reached 1,000 views.

Aside from the four first-tier cities, Chongqing, Xi’an, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, and Xiamen are locations most prominently featured in official account posts.

Chongqing ranks at the top, being mentioned nearly 34,000 times in the three months during which data was harvested.

Most WeChat official accounts are used for PR and marketing purposes; eating out, leisure, shopping, and automobile are the most common topics, with the automobile in the lead, especially among accounts with over 100,000 followers.

Some 14-16 million companies in China have hired full- or part-time social media experts. Find out why most corporate WeChat official accounts fail and more insights here.

More than three-quarters (76.3%) of smartphone users (461.4 million) in China will use phone payment for goods and services at the point of sale (POS) in 2017 according to eMarketer, raising its projections by more than 86.0%.

eMarketer estimates by 2021, 79.3% of smartphone users will be tapping, scanning and swiping at the POS, comparing with 31% in the US.

Over 90% of Alibaba’s Double 11 transactions are from mobile in 2017.

Chinese consumers spent US$5.5 trillion via mobile payment platforms in 2016, about 50 times more than their American counterparts. By the end of 2016, Tencent alone saw its active mobile payment accounts exceed 600 million users per month.

The average payment transactions also exceed 600 million transactions per day. The cashless lifestyle is now becoming a reality in China. REPORT Mobile Payment Usage in China 2017 »

Momo, one of the top social networking mobile app, monthly active users (“MAU”) reached 91.3 million in June 2017, compared to 74.8 million in June 2016 according to its financial results.

Its user growth was driven by the expansion of the video content ecosystem. The usage of short video service has reached new milestones and revenues from live video service have hit new record highs.

Momo’s total paying users of its value-added service were 4.5 million and 3.2 million as of June 30, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

Its net revenues increased 215% year over year to $312.2 million. Net income attributable to Momo Inc. increased to $60.8 million in the second quarter of 2017 from $15.4 million in the same period last year.

Live video service continued its momentum and generated revenues of $259.4 million in Q2 2017. The rapid growth in live video revenues was largely contributed by the increase in the quarterly paying users, which was 4.1 million for the second quarter of 2017, and to a lesser extent, the increase in the average revenues per paying user per quarter.

Non-GAAP net income attributable to Momo Inc. (Note 1) increased 218% to $73.8 million in Q2 2017 from $23.2 million in Q2 2016.

WeChat MAU grew 19.5% to 963M; QQ down to 850M in Q2 2017

There was a total of 1.36 billion mobile phone users in China at the end of June 2017 according to the latest official data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, an increase of 42.74 million compared the beginning of the year.

888 million China’s mobile users are 4G users, an increase of 118 million. 4G network penetration is up to 65.1%. In total, there are 1.17 billion mobile internet users in China, an increase of 79.38 million during the first half of 2017, with 3G and 4G users accounting for 1.04 billion of those, an increase of 96.05 million.

In June, per capita mobile data use reached 1.591 GB/month, which is 125% higher than in June 2016, when the figure was 707 MB/month. Mobile data use first exceeded 1 GB/month in December 2016, and has grown rapidly throughout 2017 except for a brief dip in February.

From January to June 2017, over 8.89 billion GB of mobile data were used, 136.8% higher than in the first half of 2016. Of this, cell phones accounted for 8.31 billion GB of data consumption, a total of 93.5% of all mobile data, and 147.3% higher than the year prior.

Continue to read: China’s mobile social app users insights 2017

In June 2017, China’s mobile market has produced a total of 41.786 million mobile phones, showing a comparative 6.2% decrease; there are 97 newly released models, which has decreased 29.7%. In the first half of 2017, China’s mobile market has produced 239 million mobile phones and released 565 new phone models, showing a decrease of 5.9% and 26.0% respectively.

1. Overview of Mobile Phone Market

In June 2017, China’s mobile market has produced a total of 41.786 million mobile phones, showing a comparative 6.2% decrease; there are 97 newly released models, which has decreased 29.7%. Between January and June, China’s mobile market has produced 239 million mobile phones and released 565 new phone models, showing a decrease of 5.9% and 26.0% respectively.

2. Development of 4G Mobile Phones

In June 2017, 39.615 million sets of 4G phones were produced and 78 new models were released into the market, showing a decrease of 5.0% and 36.1% respectively, and made up 94.8% and 80.4% respectively. Between January and June, 226 million 4G phones were manufactured and 462 new models were released, showing 3.0% and 28.8% decrease respectively, and made up 94.8% and 81.8%.

89.0% of the 4G phones manufactured in June were all network phones. The type of networks supported by the 4G phones are as follows: FDD-97.2%, TD-SCDMA 99.1%, WCDMA 97.0% and cdma2000 89.2%.

3. Foreign Brand Mobile Phones in China

In June 2017, 38.078 million foreign brand mobile phones were produced in China, showing a comparative 7.4% decrease, making up 91.1% of China’s manufactured mobile phones for the same period. There were 91 newly released models, which reflects a 30.0% decrease, and makes up 93.8% of the newly released models in China’s mobile phone market.

For the first half of the year, 216 million foreign brand phones were produced in China, with a comparative 4.3% decrease, and made up 90.5% of the phones produced in China in the same period. There were 533 newly released models, with a comparative decrease of 26.7%, making up 94.3% of new model in China in the same period.

4. Development of Smart Mobile Phones

In June 2017, 39.483 million sets of smartphones were produced, with a comparative 5.8% decrease, making it 94.5% of China’s produced mobile phones. Of which, 33.359 million sets were Android phones. Between January and June, 226 million smartphones were produced, with a comparative 3.9% decrease, making it 94.6% of phones produced in China. Of which, 187 million sets were Android phones.

In June 2017, there were 78 new smartphone models released into the market, showing a 36.6% decrease, making up 80.4% of newly launched models in the same period, of which 56 models support Android operating system.

Between January and June 2017, there were 450 new smartphone models released, with a 31.2% decrease, making up 79.6% of the newly launched models in the same period. Of the 450 models, 332 models support the Android operating system.

Mobile apps usage overview in Q1 2017

Tencent has enhanced WeChat search features this week and feed the search results with data from WeChat Mini-Programs.

WeChat users can search a specific stock by name or the stock symbol. The stock information is shown directly in WeChat.

Users can also check exchange rates, flights information, mobile phone number location, and the meaning of an English word on WeChat by searching.

The search results are directly shown on WeChat; and, users don’t need to open another page, which is very similar to the top Chinese search engine Baidu:

WeChat included external sources in in-app search results pages (SERP) this April while it previously only searches chats, WeChat Moments, and Official Accounts. And, it launched a search section on WeChat in May 2017 and started testing search ads for mini-programs in June 2017.

China smartphone shipments overview Q1 2017

China’s online retail market totaled US$198.12 billion in the first quarter of 2017 with an increase of 27.6% YoY according to data from Analysis; B2C segment accounts for over 53%, led by Tmall (55.8%). Mobile continued its strong growth of 38.8% in China’s online shopping market, dominated by Tmall and Taobao (80.5%).

The total retail sales of consumer goods in China reached 8,582.3 billion yuan (US$1,245.89 bn) in Q1 2017 according to National Bureau of Statistics. Online retail market totaled 1,349.31 billion yuan (US$198.12 billion) with an increase of 27.6% YoY.

B2C Online Retail Market in Q1 2017

China’s online retail B2C market total transactions reached 720.94 billion yuan (US$105.86 bn) with an increase of 31.5% in Q1 2017, accounting for 53.4% of China’s online retail market.

Tmall remains its dominant position in China’s online retail B2C market with 55.8% market share in Q1 2017 by total transactions, followed by JD (26.7%) and Vipshop (3.4%).

Mobile Shopping Market in Q1 2017

The total transactions of China mobile shopping market reached 1,037.62 billion yuan (US$152.36 billion) with an increase of 38.8% YoY. The growth of mobile shopping in China is slowing down but the quarterly growth YoY is still over 30%.

Mobile accounts for 76.9% of total online shopping transactions in Q1 2017.

Tmall (including Taobao transactions) captured 80.5% of China’s mobile shopping market in Q1 2017, followed by JD (13.5%) and Vipshop (2%). Mobile GMV transacted on Alibaba China retail marketplaces was 2,981 billion yuan (US$433 billion), or 79% of total in Alibaba’s fiscal year 2017, an increase of 49% year-over-year.

In the first four months of 2017, the online retail sales of goods and services in China totaled 1,918.0 billion yuan (US$279.26 bn), an increase of 32.0% YoY.

WeChat team announced a new feature over the weekend that makes WeChat Mini-Program discoverable by keywords searching.

WeChat Mini-Program started with its discoverability limited to QR code scans (both online and offline) and the names of mini-programs; and, it expanded to WeChat Official Account integrations.

The new feature allows Mini-Program developers to submit up to 10 keywords for approval for each mini-program with which the WeChat users can discover it by conducting searches, effective from 9 June 2017. Developers can make the changes up to three times per month.

Keywords must be related to the features or brands of submitted mini-programs.The ranking algorithm includes factors such as the relevance of the keyword, the quality of the mini-program, user usage, and etc.

However, this search keywords feature is not applicable to Store Mini-Programs.

Developers can also check the performance of the keywords (visits in the last 7 days) in the admin area.

WeChat launched WeChat Search section last month, arousing speculations of its potential threat to Baidu in China’s mobile search market. The new “search keywords” feature will likely drive more search queries on WeChat.

WeChat Mini-Program has high penetrations in mobile payment, online videos, maps and navigation, e-commerce, online music, group buying, and Weibo according to data from QuestMobile.

The GSMA Mobile World Congress Shanghai, will be held 28 June – 1 July 2017 at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC).

First and foremost, we are continually working to expand and enhance our attendees’ experience at Mobile World Congress Shanghai,

said Michael O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer, GSMA.

Along with event favourites such as the Innovation City and 4YFN, we’re excited to present additional event feature areas that highlight current and future developments in mobile, such as drones, AR/VR and retail, among many others.

First Summit Speakers Confirmed

For 2017, the Mobile World Congress Shanghai conference program will run for three days and will be held in Hall W3 of SNIEC. In addition to the keynote sessions, the conference incorporates 12 focused summits that will explore the latest industry trends, from connected cars to network evolution to augmented reality/virtual reality and more.

Wednesday, 28 June

Data Security Summit

• Chris Blundell, Partner, Head of TMT, Brunswick Group
• Liz Brandt, CEO, Ctrl-Shift

MMIX Asia Summit

• Neeraj Roy, Managing Director and CEO, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.
• Yaron Jacobs, CEO, LKF Media Ltd.

Operator Evolution Strategies Summit

• Cao Desheng, Director General, China Transport Telecommunications & Information Center
• Alice Ramos, Group Head for Development, PLDT

Transforming Industries Summit

• James Sha, Assistant Vice President, Acer Inc.
• TS Anil, Head of Global Product Solutions, Visa

Thursday, 29 June

Digital Consumer Summit

• Ivan Chan, Managing Director and Transformation Lead, Greater China, Accenture Digital
• Anisha Singh, Founder and CEO, mydala.com

Global Device Summit

• Hasan Aula, Group CEO, Erajaya
• Jian (Gina) Qiao, SVP and Co-President MDB, Lenovo

Internet of Things (IoT) Summit

• Chris Penrose, Senior Vice President, AT&T
• Leopold Beer, President, APAC, Bosch Sensortec

Network Evolution Summit

• Masanori Kondo, Deputy Secretary General, APT
• Alex Jinsung Choi, Chairman, Telecom Infra Project

Friday, June 30

Connected Vehicle Summit

• Mario Weltermann, Head of Innovation China, Audi
• Dino Flore, Director General, 5GAA

Enterprise & The Cloud Summit

• Jack You, Senior Security Director, Huawei
• Wu Jian, Vice President, New H3C

Future Tech Summit

• Celestino Alvarez, CEO and Founder, Adele Robots
• Bill Huang, CEO, CloudMinds

Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality Summit

• Alvin Wang, China President, HTC Vive
• James Fong, CEO, Jaunt China

For the full details of the conference programme, including the summits, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/conference.

Mobile World Congress Shanghai Feature Areas

Mobile World Congress Shanghai will cover seven halls at the SNIEC, including an “Industry Exhibition”, which addresses the requirements of business users and will be open 28–30 June, as well as a four-day “Experience Exhibition” that showcases mobile devices, gadgets, innovative technologies and entertainment and will be open 28 June – 1 July.

VR & AR Zone – The VR & AR Zone in Hall E1 will showcase the world of augmented reality and virtual reality, including new accessories and industry solutions, and will enable consumers to experience AR and VR first-hand.

Within the VR & AR Zone, HTC Vive will bring together a range of partners and will also host the VIVE Pavilion to demonstrate a variety of life-like virtual reality experiences.

Drone Racing Competition and Drone Zone – Building on the successful launch in 2016, Mobile World Congress Shanghai will once again host the Drone Zone in Hall E2, which will feature international drone exhibitors, such as DJI, and the latest hardware and services for both the industrial and commercial drone markets. The International Drone Expo (IDE),

The International Drone Expo (IDE), organized with partner EJ Krause, will bring the latest drone developments to life. In an exciting new development for Mobile World Congress Shanghai, the GSMA will host its first drone racing tournament, with pilots from across China demonstrating their skills in “first-person view” (FPV) flying.

Future Retail Zone – New for 2017, the Future Retail Zone, in partnership with Cognizant, will present a unique futuristic shopping experience where attendees can pick up what they want and purchase the item automatically upon walking out without the hassle of queuing and checkouts.

GSMA Innovation City – The GSMA Innovation City will once again take center stage in the Mobile World Congress Shanghai exhibition, located alongside the conference program in Hall W3. Attendees will be immersed in technology-led experiences delivered by a host of partners, illustrating how mobile-connected products and services are improving the daily lives of citizens,

Attendees will be immersed in technology-led experiences delivered by a host of partners, illustrating how mobile-connected products and services are improving the daily lives of citizens, enterprises, and governments. Confirmed partners include Guiyang City Government, HID Asia Pacific, Huawei, KT Corporation, Lenovo, myFC, PayPal,

Confirmed partners include Guiyang City Government, HID Asia Pacific, Huawei, KT Corporation, Lenovo, myFC, PayPal, Qvantel and SI-TECH.The Innovation City will also include the GSMA Members Pavilion, which highlights how the GSMA supports its members in driving innovation, with a focus on key programs such as Internet of Things, Future Networks, and Identity.

The Pavilion will also underscore the mobile industry’s leadership role in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

4 Years From Now (4YFN) – 4YFN will return to MWC Shanghai in Hall W2, providing a platform that enables start-ups, investors and corporations to connect and launch new ventures together.

This year, 4YFN will recruit 150 innovative start-ups who will have the chance to compete in the 4YFN Shanghai Awards 2017 for the best innovative project. Companies confirmed to exhibit in 4YFN are Daegu Technopark, Hong Kong Cyberport, the Institute for Information Industry and Qualcomm Technologies, as well as a delegation of 20 company representatives from Spain.

Newly Confirmed Exhibitors, Sponsors and Partners

In addition to the event features, GSMA announced several newly confirmed exhibitors and sponsors for Mobile World Congress Shanghai, including Channel VAS, Daimler, IDT, Institute for Information Industry, Qvantel, Samsung Electronics System LSI Business, SaneChips, Verizon and vivo, among others.

Companies including BiTech, China Smart City Technology, Onkyo, Snasi Electronics, The9 Education and Tiansec have confirmed their participation in the Smart City Expo at Mobile World Congress Shanghai.

The GSMA also announced that QQ.com has been confirmed as an Official Media Partner, joining Mobile World Live. Strategic Media Partners include C114, CCIDcom and Communications World.

Registration to attend Mobile World Congress Shanghai is now open.

The total sales of smartphones in China reached 35.52 million units in April 2017, led by Huawei with 8.08 million units and 22.8% market share.

The top 10 smartphone brands also include OPPO, Vivo, Apple, Xiaomi, Meizu, Gionee, Samsung, Letv, and Lephone. The top three accounted for over 50% market share in April.

Apple’s market share increased by 0.7% compared with March 2017 to 11.6% in April 2017, ranking the fourth. And, Samsung fell out of the top five in China.

In the “3500-5000 yuan” high-end smartphone market, Huawei’s sales accounted for almost 90% in April 2017 according to a Chinese mobile phone retailer Dixintong.

China smartphone market insights for Q1 2017

WeChat launched Search and Top Stories sections in the updated WeChat iOS 6.5.8. These two sections are not yet available for Android smartphone users.

The search results include articles from WeChat Official Accounts and WeChat Moments. However, some keywords could trigger “Current Events” category, which includes external news sources. According to WeChat, these external news sources are articles shared on WeChat.

Tencent set up a search application department under WeChat Business Unit last month. This new feature is the latest outcome. And, that’s not all. WeChat users can also now search the conversations inside the chats and filter by dates, images and video, file, URL, music, and group members.

This is a very useful feature as many users share files, images, and URLs with each other on WeChat, which can be more easily accessed with this new feature. The bad news is that it’s right now only available on the recently updated WeChat iOS version.

WeChat Top Stories is a section for personalized article recommendations. The algorithm includes factors such as followed Official Accounts, friends’ sharing in Moments, geographic locations, content quality, user experience, and etc.

Both Search and Top Stories are not really new features but an indication of the importance of search and content on WeChat. WeChat Search is not ready to take on Baidu in China’s mobile search market. But, it shows more potential what WeChat could bring to Tencent’s revenue growth in the future with its 938 million MAU and developing AI technologies.

A quick & easy retail solution on WeChat Mini-Program

Tencent Video and Baidu’s iQiyi are the top two mobile video apps by the number of monthly active users in China in March 2017. Both have exceeded 400 million MAU.

The other mobile video apps in top 10 include Youku, Kuaishou, Letv Video, Xiaomi Video, MangoTV, Sohu Video, Baofeng, and Tudou.

Netflix recently agreed to provide television series to China-based iQiyi.com.

Find out top vertical video apps, short video apps, and video broadcasting apps in China in Q1 2017 here. Or, download our e-book Mobile Trend in China 2017.

Launched in January 2017, WeChat Mini-Program (WMP) has definitely attracted a lot of attentions. The highest penetrations come from mobile payment and online video categories.

WeChat Mini-Program has high penetrations in mobile payment, online videos, maps and navigation, e-commerce, online music, group buying, and Weibo according to data from QuestMobile.

Its daily active users growth is much faster since the last week of March 2017. QuestMobile’s research shows increased number of apps used and WeChat Pay usage frequency after using WMP. But, it might be too early to link that to the use of Min-Programs.

However, the growth looks reasonable since WeChat team launched a series of new policies since last week of March to boost the adoption of its Mini-Program including:

• Opening up the application of this mini-apps to individual developers
• Allowing WeChat Mini-Program to be launched from the menu of WeChat Official Accounts
• Allowing the launch Mini-Program from the regular / existing 2D code
• Supporting third-party platforms to develop and manage Mini-Programs (good news for agencies)
• Providing new data APIs on users’ visit trend, geo-location, retentions, and page stats
• Increasing Mini-Program size from 1M to 2M
• Enabling each Official Account to be linked to 3 mini-programs of different parties or 10 programs by the same developer; each mini-program can also link up to 3 official accounts
• Allowing adding mini-programs in the main content of WeChat Official Account articles
• Allowing the same name as the Official Account
• Upgrading the retail management feature of Official Accounts to Mini-Program

Huge Potential in Retail

Migrating the retail store feature of an Official Account to a mini-program doesn’t at the moment offer too much additional values. Instead of sitting on a menu item of one WeChat Official Account, it is now under Mini-Program.

However, since the retail store mini-program does not require coding capability, it could potentially be adopted by a large number of small retailers who can’t afford to develop their own light-weight retail WeChat Mini-Program.

The question now is, what is Tencent’s next move for this? Adding valuable features will no doubt make it more attractive to retailers which can further push the mini-program adoptions to an exponential growth.

A threat to Apple or the mobile app ecosystem?

WeChat Mini-Program is introduced as a lightweight app on top of WeChat infrastructure. Users don’t need to download, install, or register to run the applications programmed inside the Mini-Program framework. In comparison, a mobile app can be designed with complex features and functions.

The size of each mini-program is restricted to 2M while the average file size is 38MB for iOS mobile apps and 15MB for Android mobile apps.

At the moment, WeChat Mini-Program does not look like a serious threat to Apple; but, it potentially can be. Tencent must be very carefully on how they expand the functions and features, especially those involving monetary transactions. The existence of WeChat app, mother of all mini-programs, depends on Apple’s iOS ecosystem.

Mini-Programs could be good news for some mobile apps who are NOT well known or attractive enough. Some of the top reasons Chinese mobile users don’t install certain mobile apps include the concern of limited smartphone storage and the inconvenience and data cost of downloading and installation.

WeChat Mini-Program very likely has a higher adoption rate than a mobile app with the same function. For companies promoting a new app could take advantage of this such as developing a lighter version with a key feature of the mobile app as a strategic first step for user acquisitions.

Starting on 29 April 2017, users can easily rent a bicycle from one of the six leading bike-sharing companies in China via Alipay without installing additional mobile apps.

Alipay’s “Scan & Ride” function connects six bike sharing brands including Ofo, Youonbike, Bluegogo, Hellobike, Funbike, and Ubike, offering a total number of over six million shared bicycles across 50 cities in China.

Currently, shared bikes on the streets require the download, installation, and registration of mobile apps; some may ask for cash deposits. Skipping all these delivers better user experience and convenience. These bike-sharing apps sitting on top of Alipay app achieves that; and, the idea is very similar to WeChat launched Mini-Program.

All the six bike-sharing companies but Hellobike also joined Alipay’s riding protection program, which offers insurance to bike riders.

China bike-sharing market is estimated to reach US$1.5 billion (+735.8%) and 209 million users in 2017. Read China bike-sharing market insights in Q1 2017 →

Update (30 April 2017): Mobike reported an addition of 24 million newly registered users on 28 April 2017 after being integrated with WeChat since 29 March 2017, an increase of over 200%.

Check out the UN report: The growth of digital payment ecosystems in China: what it means for other countries

iPhone has the highest retention rate (18.6%) in Q1 2017, followed by Huawei (13.4%). However, Huawei is the top smartphone brand in China by sales (19.2%) in the first quarter of 2017, followed by OPPO (18.7%).

China Smartphone Retention in Q1 2017

Smartphone Sales in China in Q1 2017

Top Android Smartphones

Top iPhone Models in Q1 2017

Related: E-Book: China Mobile Trends 2017

WeChat has included external sources in in-app search results pages (SERP) while it previously only searches chats, WeChat Moments, and Official Accounts. Some users start to see a “news” section in the WeChat SERP which includes external news sources.

The search box is on top of WeChat main user interfaces (Chats; Contacts; Discover); I conducted a search for “Jay Chou”, a very famous Taiwanese celebrity, and saw the following results:

WeChat groups search results in sections (left): emoji, WeChat Moments, music (songs shared in WeChat Moments in the last 30 days), and related articles (center). The related articles have now included external sources other than official accounts articles such as the one on the right of the screen capture.

Related: Use WeChat Index to monitor the trend on WeChat

Most are articles from Official Accounts; and, I found two external sources Zhihu and Sogou Baike. It can’t be certain whether they are included previously not part of ongoing update as Tencent merged its search engine Soso with Sogou in 2013 and funded the Q&A platform Zhihu.

Currently, not all users see external sources or the new “news” section in the search results on WeChat. Even one can see that section with one keyword, not all search terms can trigger the display of the news section. This feature seems still under testing.

WeChat opens external web pages directly; and, in most cases, the loading speed and user experience are not as good as those from Official Accounts. If Tencent is to include external sources to WeChat search, it could benefit by adopting a similar approach as Facebook’s Instant Articles, Google’s AMP, or Baidu’s MIP.

Tencent reported 889 million monthly active (MAU) users on WeChat in Q4 2016, which makes WeChat potentially a serious player and a challenger to Baidu in China’s mobile search market.

Baidu has 78% market share by total revenues in China’s search engine market in 2016. This market will grow from 76.1 billion yuan (US$11.05 bn) to 113.4 billion yuan (US$16.47 bn) in 2019. A huge MAU doesn’t necessarily equal to a good deal of search volumes.

Can WeChat seriously challenge Baidu’s mobile search? Not in the near future. A huge WeChat MAU doesn’t necessarily equal to a good deal of search volumes. And, the quality of the mobile search algorithm and experiences are not something Tencent can easily beat.

Update (24 Apr 2017): Tencent has set up search application department under  WeChat Business Unit, according to Leiphone and confirmed by Tencent. The search application department is responsible for WeChat’s search business, reading recommendation business, AI technology realization, WeChat data platform development, and data capabilities.

Continue to read→ Top WeChat stats and trends 2016

iOS market share dropped to 26.3% in China’s smartphone market from 29.1% in January 2017 according to a research company Newzoo.

iPhone remains the top smartphone brand in China in February 2017 by the number of monthly active devices (26.3%), followed by Huawei (15.6%), Xiaomi (13.8%), OPPO (13.8%), and Vivo (12.1%). Xiaomi AppStore bypassed Baidu Mobile Assistant to be the third Android App Store in China in Feb 2017.

OPPO and Vivo are the top two smartphone brands in Feb 2017 by sales, primarily driven by offline sales. Xiaomi dropped to the sixth with only 3.3% market share in offline sales and 23% in onlinene sales according a Chinese research company Sino.

• OPPO sold 7 million units offline (13.5 billion yuan), 206 thousand units online (460 million yuan)
• Vivo sold 6.17 million units offline (11.1 billion yuan), 187 thousand units online (464 million yuan)
• Xiaomi sold 1.1 million units offline (1.24 billion yuan), 1,896 thousand units online (2,277 million yuan)

Huawei’s HONOR (1.904 million units; 2.6 bn yuan) and Xiaomi (1.896 mn units; 2.28 bn yuan) are the top two best selling smartphone brands in terms of total online sales.

WeChat quietly launched WeChat Index, a tool integrating search and browsing behavior data on WeChat and Official Accounts to show the brand trend on WeChat platform.

Users can either search for WeChat Index (“微信指数”) to locate the app and then enter the brand term to see the trend. Alternatively, users can type “微信指数 + Keyword” to get the results directly.

WeChat Index displays the trend for the past 7 days, 30 days, or up to 90 days. You can use this tool to see the trends of your brand, products, events, and etc.

Combined MAUs of Weixin and WeChat reached 889 million in Q4 2016, an increase of 28% YoY according to Tencent’s financial results.

Read more: Case Studies: Native Video Ads on WeChat Moments

The top 10 Android app stores by total user coverage in China in December 2016 according to TalkingData are:

1. 360 Mobile Assistant
2. Tencent’s App Store
3. Baidu Mobile Assistant
4. Xiaomi App Store
5. OPPO App Store
6. Xiaomi Games Center
7. Huawei App Store
8. Google Play
9. Vivo Games Store
10. Vivo App Store

In comparison, another research company iiMedia data showed that the top 3 app stores by total number of active users in Q4 2016 were 360 Mobile Assistant (42.4%), Tencent App Store (34.8%), Baidu Mobile Assistant (25.1%), Wandoujia+PP Assistant (21.2%).

China has surpassed the United States as the largest market in the world for iOS App Store revenue earning over $1.7 billion in Q3 2016.

Download E-Book for details: Mobile Trend in China 2017 (CIW Premium members only)

Total net revenues of mobile social app Momo were $246.1 million in Q4 2016, an increase of 524% from $39.5 million in Q4 2015.

Its live video service, launched in Q3 2015, generated revenues of $194.8 million in Q4 2016 due to the increase in paying users of live video service. Paying users of Momo live video service for Q4 2016 reached 3.5 million.

Value-added service revenues, mainly including membership subscription revenues and virtual gift
revenues, were $19.1 million in Q4 2016, an increase of 31% from $14.6 million during the same period of 2015. Momo members grew to 3.5 million in 2016 from 2.9 million in 2015.

Mobile marketing and mobile games revenues were $19.7 million and $11.3 million in Q4 2016 respectively, an increase of 29% and 45%.

Related: China social media users compared: Weibo vs WeChat vs Momo

Net revenues of Momo for the full year of 2016 were $553.1 million, an increase of 313% from $134.0 million in the same period of 2015, primarily driven by live video service, mobile marketing business, and value-added service.

Income from operations was $88.4 million in Q4 2016, compared to $3.5 million during the same period last year. Net income attributable to Momo Inc. was $83.8 million in Q4 2016, compared to $6.1 million during the same period last year.

Net income attributable to Momo Inc. was $145.3 million for the full year of 2016, compared with $13.7 million in 2015.

Momo’s monthly active users (“MAU”) reached 81.1 million in December 2016, compared to 69.8 million in December 2015.

Also read: Introduction to Momo App

The number of active online dating users in China dropped to 23.85 million in January 2017 from 26.24 million in January 2016 according to data from QuestMobile.

Dating was a 9.44 billion yuan market in China in 2016 and is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan in 2018. Online dating market reached 3.44 billion yuan in 2016 and will grow to 4.4 billion yuan in 2019 according to iResearch.

Top Online Dating Apps in China

Close to 90% of Blued users are male as it’s the leading gay dating app in China.

Mobile apps from traditional online dating background who focus on “marriage” lead in China’s tier-1 cities, including Jiayuan, Zheai, and Baihe. Users of these apps have the highest spending power in China.

Mobile apps with the most young users are Xiao Enai, Wei Ai, and Blued.

Mobile apps with over 2 million monthly active users (“MAU”) in Jan 2017 include Xiao Enai, Blued, Jiayuan, and Tongcheng Relian.

The top mobile dating apps by total MAUs in January 2017 are Xiao Enai, Blued, Jiayuan, Tongcheng Relian, Wei Ai, Baihe, Zhenai, Youyuan Wang, Kuai Yueai, and Lianai Shenqi.

Also read: China’s mobile apps market insights in 2016

Kugou Music, QQ Music, Kuwo Music were the top three mobile music apps by total number of downloads in 2016 with 28.4%, 16%, and 13.9% market share respectively.

In 2016, Alibaba merged Xiami music with Tiantian Dongting and launched Alibaba Planet; Tencent merged QQ Music with China Music Group (Kugou Music, Kuwo Music, etc.) and launched Tencent Music Entertainment Grup (“TME”).

China mobile music app users reached 472 million in Q4 2016, an increase of 1.51%. 65.5% mobile music app users prefer listening to the local downloaded music to online streaming music.

Top sources of obtaining music information are search, top music rankings, and browsing by singers. Less than one-third of users discover music through recommended playlist, which indicates potential enhancement of mobile music app algorithms.

Almost 60% China’s mobile app users are willing to pay for online music services with an average monthly spend between 10 and 30 yuan.

Over half users heard of independent musicians in China in 2016; and, 54.5% follows the updates of independent musicians. 85.7% are willing to buy music from them. Different online music platforms launched various plans to cultivate and promote independent musicians.

Mobile users are sometimes forced to initiate or download an app to continue viewing further content while visiting a web page via search engine, which can be quite annoying to users. 

Take one of the popular audio sharing platform Ximalaya as an example:

When a user enters the website via mobile search, it interrupts the user journey and forces the users to download or use the mobile app. Baidu mobile search will significantly lower the rankings of such pages; so, companies should avoid implementing such practices.

Optimizing for Baidu Mobile Search

Domains and servers. Baidu recommends simple and short domain names as they are easier for remember. Businesses should select stable and good performing servers. Baidu also recommends fully-responsive HTML5 designs to build websites. Keep in mind that page loading speed is a very important ranking factor.

Machine readable. Baidu crawls, processes, and indexes mobile web pages via Baiduspider2.0. Currently, Baiduspider can only understand text content and may have difficulty extracting content and links from flash, images, ajax, iframe, and javascript. Use “alt” tag on images.

Flat structure. Baidu recommends mobile sites should have a clear structure and shallow link depth, which allow users to quickly obtain useful information and search engines to quickly understand the structure level. Tree structures are recommended in three levels: homepage » category » details page.

Linking. The ideal site structure is flat tree structure, from the home page to the content page level as little depth as possible. Every page should link to the upper-level page, the next level page, and pages with related content. Important web pages should be near the home page.

In addition, breadcrumb navigation is also important to have for mobile websites.

External links are important for mobile page rankings, including links from PC only pages to mobile pages. Be reminded poor quality external links have a negative impact on your Baidu rankings. You can use Baidu Webmasters to analyze the external links.

URL structure. If your website designs different pages specifically for mobile users, Baidu recommends the use of mobile home page with m.a.com/3g.a.com/wap.a.com (the use of subdirectory such as www.a.com/m/ is not recommended), category pages with m.a.com/n1/、m.a.com/n2/ (it’s better if n1 and n2 can be directly accessed). Details pages should have simple and shorter URLs with few parameters. Different pages with the same content should use 301 Redirect to one unique URL.

Anchor text. The simpler the description of the anchor text is written, the easier it is for the user to understand the purpose of the page. The user discovers that your page is a link from other pages, and the anchor text is the only introduction Baiduspider understands the page.

Anchor text must be accurate; and, incorrect descriptions could get your page penalized.

Tools. You can use Baidu Webmasters to submit a mobile sitemap, check mobile indexing status, and submit 404 removed pages.

If Baidu could not locate proper mobile pages, it will create a transformed mobile page for better user experience. However, it’s not as good as fully responsive HTML5 designed web pages.

Page Title. You should have unique and relevant title for each mobile page, limited to 17 Chinese characters. If more than 17 characters in title, it will be forced to two rows or removed when it’s over 24 characters. Keep the most important words in the beginning of the title. If your brand is well known in China, keep your brand in the title.

Meta data.

Having a unique “description” tag for each page is important. You should also use “applicable-device” tag to inform Baidu of your website mobile adaption status:

• If your web pages are only good for desktop browsing, add <meta name=”applicable-device” content=”pc”>
• If your web pages are only good for mobile devices, add <meta name=”applicable-device” content=”mobile”>
• If your website uses fully-responsive design, add <meta name=”applicable-device” content=”pc,mobile”>

For local content, you can use geo meta tag; for example, if your website targets users in Beijing, you can use “location” meta tag:

<meta name=”location” content=”province=北京;city=北京; coord=116.306522891,40.0555055968″>

Coord is the latitude and longitude coordinates of the page information.

Content design. Baidu recommends 14pt font size for main content (no smaller than 10px), and line spacing of (0.42~0.6)*font size (no lower than 0.2*font size).

If the main content contains multiple images, the images should be set to uniform width and positions. When the content contains multiple text links, the recommended font size is 14px and 13px for the vertical spacing. If the font size is 16px, the vertical spacing recommended is 14px. The clickable text links area is no smaller than 40px

Related post: Baidu version of Google AMP

WeChat users made 2.1 billion minutes of free calls and exchanged 46 billion red packets (hongbao)on WeChat during the past Chinese New Year 2017, five times more than the previous year according to WeChat.

Continue to read: What are consumers buying for Chinese New Year 2017?

China smartphone shipments were up 9% in Q4 2016 and 12% in 2016 according to Counterpoint. Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo (HOV) emerged as clear winners in 2016.

Oppo, Huawei, vivo, Meizu, and Gionee captured a combined 58% of the total Chinese smartphone market in 2016. Demand for rest of the brands declined, especially Xiaomi and Apple.

Oppo and Vivo were the fastest growing brand and since June 2016 owing to strong omnipresent distribution channels from tier-1 to tier-4 cities across China. Xiaomi slipped to the fourth spot during the year as the demand for its smartphones declined 22% annually.

Best-Selling Smartphone Models Share in 2016

Oppo R9 rose to the best-selling smartphone in China in 2016 breaking Apple’s iPhone dominance streak as the best-seller for the first time since 2012.

Android accounted for 80.7% of urban China smartphone sales in Q4 2016, an increase of 9.3 percentage points year-over-year according to Kantar. iOS made up 19.1% of smartphone sales, down from 27.1% in the same period a year earlier. iPhone 7 remained the top-selling model in the Chinese market in the last quarter of 2016 at 6.8%.

Related: China Smartphone Usage Insights 2016

Native video ads on WeChat Moments allow 6 or 15 seconds outer layer video clips; and, users can click to enter inner layer native promotion page. The inner layer landing page uses the WeChat native component function to realize full-screen interactivity.

WeChat native video pages provide ten times faster loading speed as regular HTML5 landing pages do to achieve smooth interactions and experiences. It significantly reduces bounce rates.

Porsche: Panamera

Based on the WeChat system’s native speed loading capabilities, the native video promotion page allows users to seamlessly navigate from the outer layer to the inner page. And, the zero-latency browsing experience makes the brand story “spontaneous.” Inside the ad, it adopted the 360-degree panoramic interior display so that consumers are immersed to the full exposure of the car.

Lancome: the little black bottle

Lancome utilized the native video ads on WeChat Moments via fun puzzle games to give away 10,000 Lancome products including the little black bottle, miracle fragrance, etc.

Yili Group

In the form of full-screen flashing poster video and 360-degree panoramic view, Yili promoted its brand on WeChat and stimulate the purchase demand for the coming Chinese New Year.

Read more on WeChat mini-program or top WeChat stats in 2016 »