China mobile shopping users exceeded 300 million with a total transaction of almost 10 trillion yuan in 2014, an increase of 270% according to Enfodesk.

The major China mobile shopping forces are those post-85s and post-90s; the most popular product is clothing and 3C products.

EnfoDesk estimates China’s smartphone is to reach 481.38 million units in 2015. Presence of smartphones make shopping easier and convenient wherever the user is connected online. Public transportation is the most popular scenario for mobile shopping in China.

Total transaction value of China mobile shopping market more than tripled in 2014, estimated by EnfoDesk.

WeChat Mobile Shoppers Insights

WeChat is just one of the most popular messaging app in China though it has attracted most attention. Mobile QQ has more monthly active users in Q3 2014 according to Enfodesk research.

Top Mobile Shopping Apps in China in 2014

Demographic Profile of China Mobile Shoppers

Read more: China Mobile Shopping Market to Exceed 3 Trillion in 2017

The total number of fans of China e-commerce websites on Weibo reached 24 million by the end of July 2014, becoming a large online community for online retailers.

The post-80s are the primary group of the e-commerce sites fans on Weibo. 20% are from Guangdong province, followed by Beijing (11%), Zhejiang (9%), Shanghai (8%) and Jiangsu (6%).

Women of 26, 27 years old in Guangzhou represent the biggest fan group of China’s e-commerce websites..

China e-commerce total transactions reached RMB2.83 trillion (US$460 billion) in the second quarter this year, a QoQ growth rate of 7.1% and YoY growth rate of 19.9%.

The total number of business social networking users in China was only 3.7 million in 2008 but experienced high growth rate last year to over 31 million according to iResearch January data.

China’s Top Professional Social Networking Websites

According to Chinese research company iResearch’s data this January, Dajie.com is leading the business social networking race, followed by Wealink.com, Renhe.cn, Tianji.com and Ushi.com.

Dajie.com was launched in April 2009, focusing on University students recruitment. It expanded to target Chinese white collar with more social networking features. Dajie’s total registered users reached 24 million in June 2013.

Compared with LinkedIn’s 300 million users, China’s business social network is still in its early stage.

Demographics of China’s Business Social Networking Users

The average age of China’s professional social  networking websites is 30, which is the post-80s internet users.

China’s professional social networking users are more educated than overall China internet users with 68% having Bachelor’s Degree or higher. Their average income is about 7,500 yuan and nearly half (49%) are married with kids.

Sign up on the right to receive full report stats.

This is the part 1 of a series of posts that gives you insights on Chinese netizens behaviors from Sina Weibo. Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Sina Weibo launched its 2013 Weibo User Development Report on December 6, based on massive Weibo user accounts information and consumption behavior to offer enterprises effective data support in social media marketing.

According to CNNIC, the number of Chinese netizens reached 591 million, and mobile netizens accounted for 464 million. Sina Weibo was one of the most important social networks for Chinese netizens, and its users had been growing fast in recent years.

Generally speaking, female Weibo users equaled to male Weibo users. Male accounted for 50.1%, a little bit more than female users.

Post 90s had become the major Weibo user groups, accounted for 53%. In the past year, post 90s users grew significantly. Post 80s accounted for 37%. Weibo tended to attract young user groups.

17.4% of Weibo users were from community service industry, and many were from school, real estate and IT industries.

Most of Weibo users had high education backgrounds, 70.8% owned bachelor and above degrees.

By comparing user demographics from 2012 to 2013, Capricorn, Aquarius and Cancer users’ percentages all increased a little. Libra was still the largest Weibo user group in 2013.

Post 90s users grew from 37% in 2012 to 53%, replacing 80s to be the dominant Weibo user groups.

Most people would use Weibo client, with 76% of the total users. 29% people used web version Weibo.

And lots of people became active after 8am, Weibo online users hit several apexes between 12 to 13, 16 to 17 and 22 to 23 in a day.

Mobile payment developed quite fast as mobile netizens increased, by analyzing Weibo users, we found out that 88% of them had used mobile payment in daily life. Alipay was the most popular mobile payment method, and many would also use online banks apps. NFC mobile payment also occupied a part of mobile payment market.

80.68% used mobile payment while shopping online, besides, 20.53% used it to repay credit card.

Mobile payment Weibo users, android users were apparently higher than other groups, with 64.78%. Government, school and NGO user groups had the highest percentage in mobile payment usage, with 18.47%. And users between 18 to 28 years old were the active mobile payment user group.

This is part 4 of a series of posts that walk you through a variety of stats on China credit card users. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

iResearch report of Chinese credit card user behavior gave us an insight on the demographic features of Chinese credit card holders. By of October 2013, most Chinese credit card holders were between the age of 25 to 30, accounted for 33.6% of total users. 25.5% users were between 31 to 35 years old, and 13.3% of users were between 36 to 40 years old. Generally, credit card users had an average higher age than non-credit card users.

Senior consumers had more stable jobs and strong purchasing power and repayment ability than young people, thus they were the main credit card target users.

By October 2013, male credit card holders accounted for 66.2%, 4.8% higher than non-credit card male users. And female credit card users accounted for 33.8%.

Male users had been the main consumers in finance industry, it didn’t change in credit card market. Male users generally had a deeper understanding of finance products and more interest in it, besides, male users tended to have better control over impulse purchasing than female, which made higher male credit card holders.

HCR, a Chinese research company, did an analysis on Chinese consumers attitude to brands. It collected data from a sample of 5,000 consumers in more than 10 cities in China. HCR summarized four types of Chinese consumers based on the interview about brand attitude.

Indifferent

The first type is indifferent consumers, they don’t care too much for choosing brands, and they are too lazy to find out the difference of brands. Indifferent consumers are likely to shop randomly.

Explorer

Explorers take brands very seriously when they go shopping, they would pay attention to new brands or better brands. They like to know brands thoroughly and discover better ones.

Switcher

Switchers are not loyal to a single brand, they would choose flexibly among several brands to maximize their benefits. But they still think brands are very important.

Loyalist

Loyalist would not change brands causally, they are extremely loyal to brands.

We could tell from the chart that almost 60% were explorer and switcher. It seemed that some consumers were naturally switchers and explorers, they couldn’t stay loyal for one brand. And 24% were loyalist.

In terms of products, most consumers tended to be switchers on FMCG. And consumers were more likely to be explorers on products like chocolate and shampoo. Loyalists were found in cosmetic products and milk powder. Chinese consumers chose simply for FMCG and products they were familiar with, as the features of products increased, consumers tended to choose more discreetly and more likely to stick to their choices.

Demographics of the four types consumers showed that men were likely to be indifferent consumers, as for other types, women were much more than men.

According to the report released by Chinese Academy of Sciences and Sina Weibo, by the end of June 2013, university Weibo users reached 30 million.

10686 university Weibo users were investigated, their ages ranged from 18 t0 25. The average age was 20.84. As the chart shown above, juniors used Weibo most, with 23.98%. Then as the age grew, the users decreased. Weibo users whose age were 25 only occupied 1.86%.

Among Weibo university users, male users were more than female users.

54.71% university Weibo users were the only child of the family.

Below was the university students Weibo users’ per capita monthly household income.

In 2012, Chinese per capita monthly household income was 2246.58 yuan (USD 364.44). So the university Weibo users maily came from middle and above income family.

We can tell from the chart, the Weibo registering ages mostly were from 18 and 19. When students entered universities, they began using Weibo.

The most important features of Weibo are followings and followers. University Weibo users’ followings were much more than their followers. Weibo provided students a large amount of information.

Weibo original posts occupied 40%, quite a lot of uers post with pictures and location information. University students were very active on Weibo, they loved to share their lives with other people.

The first active posting time was after 6 pm, peaked during 10 pm to 11 pm. The second peak was during 12 am to 1 pm.

The content in one post was relatively short, and average comment number per post was higher than repost times. They loved to comment on posts to express their own opinions.

80% users logged in Weibo via mobile devices.

They mainly used PC to update Weibo, and mobile devices were also a major tool to post.

University Weibo users read posts via mobile devices more than they updated posts.

It’s due to the strengthening of public pressure and anti-corruption that expensive watches become the fuse of the downfall of officials. As a result, the market of high-end menswear and watches is declining.

Burberry’s sales growth rate in Asia, especially China in the 1st quarter fell to 16% from 60% in the same period last year. Swiss watch’s export to China had remarkably slowed down in 2012. It’s more and more difficult to earn money from the rich. Well, who holds the biggest market? It’s really a surprise to find that the answer is Diaosi.

Programmers and media players possess the highest level of recognition on Diaosi-identity. Less that 10% of civil servants identify themselves as Diaosi.

The generation after 80s owns the strongest sense of Diaosi-identity, up to 81.2%.

When you come across a man in the age of 20 to 30-year-old with no car and no house, doing things in the field of media and programs, you can directly realize that he is a so-called Diaosi. Males with monthly income between 6,001 and 8,000 yuan and females between 3,001 and 6,000 yuan have the highest level of recognition on Diaosi-identity. Actually, the income of many of these people is much higher than social average income standard.

When it comes to the consumption view, the demands on quality and fashion is the highest, while less than 10% of these people focus on the necessities. That is to say, although they have the sense of Diaosi-identity, their requirements on the quality of life is increasingly high.

In the meantime, Diaosi group like to stay at home and are fond of  playing computer games. Thus, social activities are their biggest imbalance and meanwhile their greatest desire.

Survey has showed that only one third of Diaosi group have boyfriends or girlfriends. However, the majority of Diaosi are in the age of 20 to 30-year-old. So, social contact is the greatest desire of Diaosi.

Epilogue: Those people agreeing with Diaosi cluture have generally formed a special consumer group with high consumption ability and rational consumption view. Concepts of high quality, reasonable price and originality that cater for Diaosi may become the mainstream of consumption in the future.

According to AdChina research, Ctrip and Qunar are the top online hotel and air ticket booking websites. Over 50% business travelers made online bookings on Ctrip and Qunar.

Generally speaking, business travelers who travel more than 4 times tend to choose online bookings.

AdChina’s research also shows the demographics feature of business travelers. 39% of which travel 2 or 3 times in half a year is between 20 to 29 years old, and 40% of which travel more than 10 times in half a year is between 30 to 39 years old.

Most business travelers choose online hotels and air tickets booking websites. Search engines are often used too.

According to iiMedia Research, China’s mobile users were 450 million by the end of 2012, and mobile users from tier 3 and tier 4 cities reached 163 million. With the popularity of smartphones and mobile applications, mobile has become the major way of accessing Internet among users in three and four tier cities.

Younger generation tend to own mobile phones, and 40.3% of mobile users in tier 3 and tier 4 cities are between 18 to 24 years old.

Mobile users in tier 3 and tier 4 cities tend to be low educated, 85.8% of which don’t attend universities or colleges.

34.6% mobile users’ salary are below 1500 CNY.

According to iiMedia, smartphones are not so common among tier 3 and tier 4 cities users. This is a huge opportunity for mobile manufacturers, and they should focus on people between the age of 35 and 44, who have the most purchasing power.

41.4% use mobile phone to read online news and 38.2% to search. Besides, we should notice that 23.6% use mobile phone to download games and other applications.

Over 80% have used SNS and 43.1% of which have used Wechat.

According to Nielsen’s research, China Mobile phone penetration is among the highest with 89%, among which 66% use smartphone.

The younger generation are more likely to embrace smartphone devices; 82% between the age of 16 and 24. And over half of the mobile phone users have multiple phones.

When Chinese choose a mobile phone, money is the top criteria. Good operating system and wide choice of applications are also very important to consumers.

Text messaging is still the most popular activities among Chinese mobile users, however, web browsing, applications and social networking are widely used on smartphones.

The popularity of smartphones has brought changes to shopping. Top smartphone shopping activity is Location-Based Service, Barcode or QR scanning, mobile banking and mobile wallet.

With the growing smartphone users, brands and advertisers are trying to get their message delivered to right customers. Chinese are the heaviest mobile video users, with 17% users said they watch more than three times a day. Most people said the use of mobile video had no effect on TV viewing. Mobile Internet is the major access of ads, and 65% of users watch ads at least once a day.

Bachelor’s Day promotion was quite a carnival, attracting online shoppers in different age groups. China online users between 25 to 35 years old accounting for more than 50% in total are the main forces of online shopping in China.

According to a recent iResearch survey, almost sixty percent of China mobile Internet users are between 18 to 34 years old and those below 18 also represent almost 20% of total China mobile Internet users.

There are 356 million mobile Internet users in China according to CNNIC data released this January.

According to Q1 2012 data from Ohio-based research firm ProsperChina’s InsightCenter, China smartphone users resemble the survey sample in terms of both gender and age, but index significantly higher among wealthier internet users.