The number of mobile phone users reached 1.306 billion as of the end of December 2015 according to Ministry of Industry and Technology of China. The mobile phone user penetration rate reached 95.5 handsets among every 100 persons compared with 94.5 in 2014.

China 4G network users increased largely in 2015. China 2G mobile phone users decreased by 183 million users which accounted for only 39.9% of total mobile phone users. However, China 4G mobile phone users increased by about 289 million to 386 million users, according to about 29.6% of total mobile phone users.

The total number of fixed phone users shrank to 231 million with 18.434 million users lose in 2015. Only 16.9 in 100 persons used landline phones in China. The Chinese tended to become “mobile” with the smart handsets and development of useful mobile apps.

China’s mobile phone internet users reached 620 million as of December 2015 according to CNNIC. About 90.1% of internet users accessed the internet through mobile phones and 127 million internet user accessed to the internet only through mobile phones. The number of Chinese internet users reached 688 million as of December 2015. The internet penetration rate reached 50.3% in China in 2015.

Also read: 1/4 China Smartphone Users Install Foreign Apps

About 63% tourists sleep with mobile devices on the bed while traveling according to Expedia. 35% visitors believe they will be more dependent on mobile phones during travel than at home; and, 28% will battery charging carry about devices or spare batteries.

Chinese tourists reply more on mobile devices followed by Thailand tourists according to Expedia. 93% of the Chinese respondents would bring a mobile phone when traveling compared to 91% among Thailand tourists. China’s smartphone penetration rate was predicted to reach 39% in 2015.

With advances in technology, visitors can complete a variety of tasks on a small device. More than half of the respondents say they will do some work on smartphones at least once or twice. Smart devices can help handle a variety of services when traveling, such as booking tickets, updating social media, searching for locations, etc. Some people even use smartphones all the trips.

Apart from mobile travel apps and navigation apps, more technology has been developed to deliver more services for travelers. For example, Uber filed a new patent called Uber Travel, which could have a significant impact on the future of the taxi calling services.

Also read: China Outbound Travelers Shopping Overview 2015

China male consumers spent more on large purchases than female. 51% paid for over half of their online purchase on mobile end; and, mobile payment for virtual goods consumption increased by 6 percentage points higher in 2015 compared with the previous year according to China UnionPay.

Related: UnionPay Rising on Mobile Payment

54% respondents spent over 1,000 yuan (US$154.35) in shopping online each month and the consumption has been increasing year by year according to China UnionPay. The number of male buyers each of whom spent over 5,000 yuan (US$771.76) online were more than female users with 6 percentage points higher. Shanghai online shoppers spent an average of 2,000 yuan (US$308.70) online each month ranking first in China.

Mobile payment was quite common among China’s consumers. 82% respondents once used mobile phones to complete the payment and 51% paid for over half of their online purchases.

The young generation below 20 years old was interested in payment through the mobile wallet and other apps. Mobile payment for physical offline goods reached 33%. Mobile payment for virtual goods consumption increased by 6 percentage points higher in 2015 compared with the previous year.

Mobile safety became even more crucial this year. About one-eighth encountered network fraud with 6 percentage points higher compared to 2014. Nearly 50% were cheated on social accounts. Major scams were viruses, phishing websites, false base-station smishing (pretending as China Mobile and like). 20% respondents lost more than 2,000 yuan from online scams.

Nearly 90% respondents thought it necessary for mobile payment to equip certain verifications before payment transactions which indicated that security must be the priority for mobile payment. 76% used to verify via mobile phone verification code and the ratio increased by 12 percentage points over 2014.

Nearly 70% used dynamic verification code to protect payment security in each online transaction. About 20% set maximum payment limit of SMS verification reflecting cardholders’ different payment scenarios demand. Given that innovative payment, the willingness to use innovative payment among consumers who encountered scams were 4 percentage points lower than those who didn’t suffer such fraud.

Also read: China E-Payment Insights 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

China’s third-tier and fourth-tier cities account for 58% of the country’s smartphone market. China’s first-tier cities only account for 13% and second-tier cities 28%, which is out of expectation.

The post-80s and post-90s users combined account for about two-thirds of China’s smartphone market. The post-70s also have a large consumption needs of smartphones, which cannot be underestimated.

Differences exist in the purchase channels of smartphones. Consumers in China’s first-tier cities are more likely to buy phones on online B2C website. However, consumers in third-tier and fourth-tier cities are more inclined to buy through smartphone vendors’ websites or stores; the post-80s and post-90s prefer to buy on official websites or online shopping mall. The post-60s and 70s are more in favor of business offices, shopping malls and department stores to buy mobile phones.

Consumers in different tier cities have different concerns on smartphones when purchasing new sets. Consumers in first-tier cities value product evaluation reviews. Second-tier cities consumers are more concerned about related information on additional features and performance metrics. And, third-tier and fourth-tier cities consumers are more inclined to focus on price of smartphones.

Types of installed apps in smartphones have a significant discrepancy in different cities and people. Users in first-tier cities favor apps of business, health and sports while third-tier and fourth-tier cities prefer apps of music. The post-90s like social communication apps best, the post-80s download more apps on entertainment and navigation, and the post-70s prefer apps on lifestyle and tools.

Also read：China Top Smartphone Brands in H1 2015

The number of China mobile search engine users reached 590 million in Q3 2015 and the ratio of lower educated users have increased.

China mobile search engine users reached 590 million, a YoY increase of 19.9% and QoQ increase of 3.9% according to iiMedia Research.

The penetration rate of smartphone search users in China reached 88.3%.

With high penetration of smartphones and different mobile categories of apps among the young generation, 26 years old to 35 years old users account for 56.8% of the total, followed by users between 18 to 25 years old (16.5%).

Junior high school and college graduates account for the majority of mobile search engines users. Junior high school students account for 26.3%; and users of primary school and below 10.4%. Mobile search users with low education are gradually increasing, due to the growing popularity of smartphones, integrated functions of the mobile search and simpler operation.

About 76.5% users search on mobile phones every day, of which 65.0% of users search once to five times each day and 21.7% search six to ten times.

Search engines on the mobile end help users get whatever they need any time and any place which provides convenience. Increasing functions and interfaces of the mobile search engine are also main factors for many users. Mobile web browser remains the primary search entry point as adopted by 58.8% mobile search users.

Most users have a specific brand preference when searching on mobile. Baidu still has the largest share, accounting for 44.1%; Shenma, with strong traffic from UC browser, accounts for 17.4%, followed by Easou, Sogou and Haosou. About 40.7% users wouldn’t use other search engines.

71.6% users search for news through smartphones. Local affairs, novels, websites, Question & Answer are also frequently-searched content.

Scanning the QR code to search for information is a widely used mobile search method that 56.8% of users used once due to high accuracy and convenience. 32.1% of users still search by inputting words.

Ads, less optimized websites, slow network and low integration between search words and search content are major existing problems against better user experience.

The rapid development of China mobile search engine industry has formed a relatively complete industrial structure. The popularity of smartphones and technology further promotes the development of mobile search market. How to meet the needs of individual users and properly manage ads placement become main problems of mobile search engine providers.

Also read: China Mobile Apps Market Insights in H1 2015

In H1 2015, the number of China mobile internet users reached 860 million, with 120 million increases compared with Q1 2015, which showed s high penetration rate of mobile music users according to data from TalkingData.

Among the top 20 mobile music apps, Kugou music ranked first with the coverage rate of 30.47%, followed by QQ Music (19.80%), Miui Music (8.53%), Kuwo Music (7.80%) and TTpod (5.30%).

Among the top 20 mobile music apps by the number of active users, Kugou music took the lead position with active rate of 10.20%, followed by QQ music (10.19%) and Miui music (8.53%).

Female users accounted for 48.30% of the total mobile music app users in China, lower than that of male. Male users preferred music editing apps, comprehensive music platform and radio apps while female liked apps for music entertainment, music player and mobile phone ring-tones.

The location of mobile music app users had some relationship with the development level of regions. Beijing, with an overwhelming coverage rate of 20.20%, had the largest number of mobile music users, followed by Guangdong and Zhejiang province.The top 10 provinces and cities made up of 66.30% of the total market. First-tier cities and second-tier cities consisted of 15.40% and 32.30% of the total users respectively.

Among the top 10 smartphones supported by Android system for mobile music apps, Samsung and Xiaomi accounted for half the market, followed by Huawei 12.88%.

80.00% smartphones supported by Android for mobile music apps were below 1999 yuan. Smartphones between 1000 to 1999 yuan were the first choice of 36.80% users. 35.50% users bought handsets between 500 to 999 yuan and 17.70% used phones from 2000 to 3999 yuan. Only 2.30% users would buy phones over 4000 yuan.

KitKat, Jelly Bean, Lollipop and Ice Cream Sandwich were different versions of Android OS. KitKat adoptions ranked first with ratio of 47.10%, followed by Jelly Bean (41.10%) and Lollipop (7.40%).

Wi-Fi became more and more influential among Chinese users. About 60.00% users would get access to the internet through Wi-Fi. Only 10.20% would utilize 4G network because of the high cost and incomplete coverage.

China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom made up of about 90.00% of Chinese network for mobile music app usage. 64.60% users gained access through China Mobile to the internet, which prevailed the sum of the others.

Comprehensive music platform apps referred to the apps that offered music, MV, lyric, radio, drama, cross-talks, variety shows and the others. Among the top 10 mobile music apps with highest coverage rate, Kugou music maintained the highest with 30.47%, followed by QQ music. All the others were lower than 10.00%. Kugou music, QQ music and Miui music were the most active mobile music apps, with ratios of 10.20%, 10.19% and 8.53% respectively.

Mobile music apps referred to online radio that supported traditional radio service, original podcast, voice books and the like with widely covered themes and subjects. Ximalaya, Qingting FM and Xiaomi Radio took the first three positions in coverage and active users. The others were lower than 1.00%. See mobile music entertainment apps, mobile ring-tone apps and music player apps below.

Mobile music companies began competitions on copyright and tended to integrate in groups. Xiami Music and TTpod were acquired by Alibaba; Netease issued Yunyinyue; Himalaya FM acquired strategic investment from Yuewen Group, signing copyright cooperation agreement; and Changba gained D round of financing which promoted the layout of actual KTV.

Market structure has been changing. Original resources on the one hand integrated to large application companies, on the other hand cost uplift of copyright further compressed the living space of small and medium applications which might even be eliminated out of the market. Chinese mobile music industry didn’t set any defined shape, thus there was still a possibility that an app changed the market share in the future.

Also read: China Top 100 Mobile Apps in July 2015

In June 2015, the total advertising spends of mobile phone brands totalled 54.14 million yuan (US$8.45 million). Among them, Meizu spent 10.21 million yuan on online advertising, ranking first; followed by Lenovo (US$0.71 million) and Samsung (US$0.65 million) according to iResearch data.

In June 2015, online portals, IT vertical websites and online video websites were the top three favored media among mobile phone advertisers. Web portals ad spends totalled 21.95 million yuan (US$3.43 million), accounting for 40.5% of the total online advertising spends; IT website 13.82 million yuan (US$2.16 million), taking up 25.5% of the total online advertising spends; online video websites 10.75 million yuan (US$1.68 million), 19.9% of the total. The three combined accounted for 85.9% of the total.

Also read: China Advertising Insights 2015

In 2015, China mobile social networking users will reach 335.9 million with an increase of 20.7%, estimated by eMarketer. Besides, the number will continue grow and by 2019, users will exceed 480.4 million, representing 34.8% of total population.

In 2015, 83.0% of China social network users, and 32.5% of mobile phone users will use their devices for social networking at least monthly according to eMarketer’s research. Penetration is 57%, which is a bit higher as a percentage of China’s mobile phone internet users.

Also read: China Mobile Social Networking Overview & Top Apps

On 20 April 2015, China Press and Publication Academy released the report of the 12th national reading survey which included reading on WeChat for the first time. The report showed that on average a Chinese adult reads on WeChat twice a day for over 40 minutes.

One-third of Chinese leisure time is spent on the Internet, especially on mobile phones in China according to CCTV’s research in 2015.

China Press and Publication Academy’s survey involved China mobile phone users from 29 provinces and municipalities in 2014. The data showed that over 60% China adult mobile users read on WeChat in 2014. There was little difference between male mobile users and female ones.

Further, most mobile users reading on WeChat would like to chat and browse WeChat Moments, which accounted for 80%. Reading news, reading shared articles on WeChat Moments and reading articles published on WeChat official accounts represented 72.9%, 67.1% and 20.9% respectively.

There were many practical functions on WeChat in 2014. 27.2% WeChat readers favored QR code scanning; 19% readers used QQ mail and 19% used “shake to find friends nearly”; 15.3% chose to use WeChat payment while 7% readers used online ticket booking and food ordering service in 2014.

WeChat team launched “Shake – Nearby” platform (based on Bluetooth technology offering offline merchants to connect with mobile users) on 12 April 2015 to merchants targeting China’s O2O market. And WeChat quietly launched a cash reward feature for WeChat official accounts in Feb 2015.

Also read: WeChat Wi-Fi to Step on A New Stage in China

Average daily leisure time in China is 2.55 hours, which is more than three years ago (2.16 hours) according to CCTV’s latest research on China economic life. One third of Chinese leisure time is spent on the internet, especially on mobile phones in China. The research also shows that high-income group are those who have more leisure time in China in 2015.

Mobile internet is booming in China. Baidu mobile search revenue surpassed that of desktop computers in Dec 2014. And, Weibo mobile ad revenues now make up more than half of Weibo’s total ad revenues in 2014 according to Weibo’s financial results.

People whose annual income are between RMB50,000 and 60,000 have less than 160 minutes for leisure per day while those whose over RMB210,000 have 180 to 190 minutes leisure time in China in 2015.

Though the leisure time is increasing in China, the number is still half of the one in developed countries like Germany, and the U.S. One third leisure time is spent on the internet and one-third on television, one-tenth on reading.

Besides, the research points out that among low-income group whose income are below RMB20,000, 12.01% of them do not have any leisure time. Only 5.87% of Chinese people whose income are over RMB100,000 have no leisure time in 2015.

Also read: 74% Chinese Rural Residents Willing to Travel in 2014

Huawei and Xiaomi are now well-known mobile phone brands in China. Huawei has a history of over 10 years while Xiaomi has been on the market for 5 years. In 2014, their revenue had both over USD$11 billion.

China’s domestic mobile phone brands, such as Xiaomi, Huawei, and Lenovo were competing market share with Samsung. Influenced by decrease in smartphone market, Samsung suffered QoQ decreases in profit in 5 continuous quarters.

Xiaomi ranked the most innovative Chinese company (35th globally) in 2014 according to BCG’s 2014 global innovation survey. Xiaomi is active on Weibo, Wechat, Baidu Tieba, QQ, and other online forums. When it was just founded, their staff spent a lot of time on forums, making comments, and posting. See Xiaomi’s marketing success here.

Huawei consumer business group revenue totalled 12.2 billion, an increase of 30% YoY according to Huawei in 2014. Total shipment of Huawei smartphone was over 75 million units in 2014, up 45%. Huawei was ranked fifth in 2014 worldwide smartphone shipments.

Also read: Bloomberg: China Ranked 22nd World’s Most Innovative Country

The growth of 4G users in China outpaced 3G users in 2014 with 97.284 million new subscribers comparing to 83.644 million 3G new subscribers according to Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China.

China’s mobile internet data usage was 2.062G in 2014, an increase of 62.9%. A 4G subscriber on average used 205M data per month, an increase of 47.1%.

China mobile users sent much less number of SMS in 2014, 763.05 billion, down 14.4%. MMS growth was down 24.4% in 2014 while it grew by 23% in the previous year.

China phone users increased by 39.426 million to 1.536 billion, an increase of 2.6%. Mobile phone subscribers increased by 56.98 million to 1.286 billion with a penetration rate of 94.5%. The landline subscribers reached 249 million, down by 17.555 subscribers.

Also read: Half of China Internet Users to Use Tablet in 2015

eMarketer estimates that over half of China mobile phone users will use smartphones in 2015. Low cost of mobile device, rapid growth of mobile internet as well as revenue increase stimulate development of China smartphone market.

During the period from 2014 to 2018, smartphone users will increase by 177 million which means the smartphone users population will increase from 38.3% to 51.1% in China. With the availability of more 4G models in the fourth quarter of 2014, smartphone sales in the local China market were expected to top 105 million units in the quarter, increasing 16.2% sequentially, Digitimes Research estimates.

Also read: China 4G Mobile Phone Sales Expected to Reach 100M in 2014

In China mobile phone B2C market, Jingdong, Tmall, Suning, Yihaodian and Dangdang accounted for over 90% of market share by sales volume in Q3 2014. Sales volume of Jingdong and Tmall combined accounted for over 80% market share; and Jingdong accounted for 53%.

By sales value, Jingdong, Tmall and Suning together accounted for over 80% in China mobile phone B2C market in Q3 2014. Jingdong ranked top in China mobile phone B2C market by sales volume and by sales value in Q3 2014.

From different price ranges of China mobile phones, 30.4% market share by sales value of Jingdong were from mobile phones priced between 1,000 and 2,000 yuan; 22.2% were from ones between 2,000 and 3,000 yuan.

There were over 250 mobile phone brands in China mobile phone B2C market in Q3 2014 and total transaction value was RMB10.2 billion ($1.66 billion). Huawei, Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi accounted for over 60% of market share by sales value and Huawei ranked top, followed by Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi according to iResearch. The competition in China mobile phone B2C market is fierce.

Only Huawei, Samsung and Xiaomi each had over 10% market share by sales volume in Q3 2014. Among China mobile phone brands with sales value over RMB100 million ($16.35 million), Apple, LG, Sony, OnePlus, HTC, Nubia, Meizu and Samsung were ones with high average price. As Coolpad mobile phone’s price were lower than average price in China mobile phone B2C market in Q3 2014, it’s the fifth largest mobile brand by sales value though its sale volume was fourth.

Also read: PwC: 77% Chinese Buying Products on Mobile Phones

Alipay is actively expanding its business into insurance businesses with new version 8.2 offering four types of insurance packages.

Right now, Alipay mobile users upgraded to version 8.2 can see four insurance packages: one health insurance, two related to travel, and one charging only RMB 19.9 (USD 3.2) with one year’s insurance on mobile phones’ screens.

Some internet users comment that only when the screen is damaged the second time, Alipay insurance covers. Alipay has not yet comments on this.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of China recently published a report on the Chinese telecom industry in January 2014. The statistics showed that the total users of mobile internet services reached 838 million in January 2014, accounting for 67.8% of all mobile phone users. Mobile internet traffic also saw a remarkable YoY increase of 46.9% in January, amounting to 133 million G in total and 165.1 M per capita, of which 80.8% was generated from mobile phone connection.

According to the MIIT report, the net increase of telephone users nationwide was 4.976 million, bringing the total number up to 1.501 billion. Fixed broadband internet users also increased by 2.264 million, a biggest net increase in the past 9 months which brought the total number to 191 million.

Driven by 3G technologies, the number of mobile phone users increased by 6.157 million in January, making it 1.235 billion in total nationwide. 3G mobile phone users increased by 17.627 million to 419 million, setting a new record of net monthly increase and in the mean time, bringing the percentage of 3G users among all mobile phone users up by 2.3 percentage point to 33.9%. Among the 419 million 3G users, 49% used TD, an increase of 1.4 percentage point from the end of last year.

By contrast, the user base of 2G mobile internet shrank to 528 million in the same month. As 2G users upgraded to 3G internet, the percentage of 2G users among all mobile internet users decreased to 42.8% from 44.8% at the end of last year.

iResearch data showed that China mobile phones online sales volume reached 42.8 million and online sales hit 66.39 billion yuan (USD 10.74 billion) in 2013, with over 40% YoY increase. Mobile sale peaked during Double 11 promotion, sold out 4.48 million on November 11, 2013.

Many mobile phone manufacturers laid emphasis on online channels, at present, except for manufacturers’ official websites, B2C platforms were the main channels for mobile phone online selling. On one hand, B2C enterprises’ price war drew consumers’ attention to their websites, on the other hand, Chinese consumers were more likely to purchase “small” electronics online. Mobile phone as the most frequently used electronics had the highest consumer retention. These were the main reasons why mobile online sales went up rapidly.

According to iResearch, domestic brands were favored in online mobile phone selling. In 2013, total domestic mobile phones sold online reached 23.04 million, international mobile phones sold out 19.76 million online.

The ranking of online mobile phone sales volume in main B2C platforms (Xiaomi official website excluded) in 2013 showed that Samsung led the online market with 20% share, if Xiaomi official website included, Xiaomi ranked the top with 23.9%, Samsung dropped to the second with 16%.

According to Nielsen’s report on Hong Kong digital behavior, 87% of Hong Kong consumers have used the Internet in the past 12 months, compared to neighboring markets such as Singapore (67%), Malaysia (38%), Thailand (31%), Philippines (30%) and Indonesia (19%).

Internet usage in Hong Kong is particularly high among those aged 12 to 44 with over nine in ten accessing the Internet on a monthly basis.

The top three application on mobile phones and tablets in Hong Kong are search, email and news.