The number of people in China using social networking and communication sites or apps rose modestly in the first half of 2017, with 84.3% of internet users using WeChat Moments and 65.8% using QZone.

Weibo’s penetration into the internet market continued to grow, increasing by 1.6 percentage points to 38.7%. Vertical social networks, such as Douban (an interest- or hobby-centric chat site) were used by 8.6% of users.

As of June of 2017, 514 million people made purchases and shopped online in China, an increase of 10.2% over the year prior; of these, 480 million used mobile shopping platforms, an increase of 9.0%, accounting for 66.4% of all users.

Food delivery services grew rapidly, albeit from a somewhat lower base; in June of this year 295 million users ordered food online, an increase of over 86 million users from 2016, representing growth of 41.6%. Of those, 274 used mobile apps to place an order, an increase of 41.4%.

China’s online travel booking industry experienced some growth, with the number of users rising to 334 million in the first half of 2017, up by 11.5% and 34.4 million users from 2016.

The number of people booking train tickets, plane tickets, hotels, and vacations online rose by 37.6%, 19.1%, 20.5%, and 9.3%, respectively. Of the 334 million online booking users, 299 million (41.3% of all internet users) used mobile booking apps, an increase of 14.2% from 2016.

Download the details in the updated China Internet Insights report here.

Varieties of communities are built online and organized by companies, interest groups, or entrepreneurs in China. The most frequently used platforms of communications in the online communities are WeChat Group, QQ Group, and WeChat Official Account.

Online communities use a variety of tools for communicating with community members including WeChat (61.1%), custom-made app (55.6%), WeChat Official Account (52.8%), websites, QQ Group, Weibo, online forums, Baidu Post Bar (Baidu Tieba), Weibo Group, emails, and Douban.

The top platforms of communications in the online communities are WeChat Group, QQ Group, and WeChat Official Account.

Engagement is crucial for maintaining and growing online communities in China; the top types of engagement activities are offline activities, online sharing of information & resources, special offers for community members, and etc.

Most online communities members don’t have a high income as about 55.6% make no more than RMB 100,000 a year.

Read more: China social application user insights 2016

In June 2014, mobile Internet users exceeded 530 million, accounting for 83.4% of the total Internet users in China. More than 60% of China mobile users are using mobile social apps nowadays, which are indispensable mobile apps in China according to Nielsen.

Location based service (LBS) on mobile device provides much convenience in China’s O2O market. Strong social needs and LBS’s power stimulate interest-based social networking’s development in O2O market.

Over 90% of mobile social app users are using mobile social apps every day with an average of 1.5 hours per day. And over 70% use social apps during their leisure time. The peak usage period is between 8pm and 11pm as well as between 12pm and 1pm.

Location-based services (LBS) are a general class of computer program-level services that use location data to control features. Most mobile social apps in China have such features which can make social networking more convenient and popular for China mobile internet users.

China mobile Internet users use social apps to make friends who share the same interests. With LBS, they can be in touch online or offline. Popular social apps in China include Wechat, Momo, Weibo, Douban, which are easy to build interest- based social network to conduct offline events.

Total number of Weibo (Sina Weibo) mobile app’s active users was 67.53 million in August 2014, down by 10.95% according to Chinese research company EnfoDesk.

Momo users are the most enthusiastic ones about social events in China’s O2O Market and more than half Momo users often take part in online and offline social events for interest. Momo recently launched ad platform for retailer taking ride of this trend.

Also read: China’s Top Mobile Social Apps by Time Usage

Weibo is the most talked about social media channel in the last one year, followed by social networking sites like Renren. No doubt Sina Weibo should be the most critical channel to consider for most companies.