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Alipay shared a study on the spending habits of Chinese visitors on the payment app over the Labour Day holiday (1–3 May) this year. The number of Chinese visitors in Singapore over the Labour Day holiday period almost doubled from last year.

In addition, the average Chinese traveler spent SGD 325 (RMB 1,611) in Singapore during the Labour Day holiday – higher than in any of the other SEA countries, and a 13% increase from the same period last year according to Alipay.

Key Singapore-specific findings reveal:

• Grocery and fresh food supermarkets, followed by department stores and fashion brands saw the highest growth among Chinese visitors during this period
• The most popular merchants in Singapore were taxis (in-street and via taxi-hailing apps), airport merchants and resort merchants

General findings from the study reveal:

• Average overseas spending per user on Alipay increased by nearly 11% to RMB 1,790 (SGD 361)
• Spending was highest in Europe, the Middle East and North Asia
• In terms of the number of transactions, Thailand was the second-most popular destination for Chinese tourists
• Malaysia and Singapore ranked seventh and ninth in terms of the number of transactions

Demographic findings

Chinese seniors are an up-and-coming tourism trend – transactions made by those born in the 1940s and 50s more than doubled, with average spending per user in this age group jumping to RMB 1,622 (SGD 327).

About 65% who used Alipay overseas during the Labour Day holiday were female. Transactions made by those born in the 2000s increased eight-fold, on average to RMB 506 (SGD 102) during the same period.

In Southeast Asia, tens of thousands of merchants already accept Alipay as a payment platform for Chinese tourists. An earlier joint study from research firm, Nielsen and Alipay found that more than 90% of Chinese tourists would use mobile payment to pay overseas if given the opportunity.

Alipay has been working with various government bodies, financial institutions and businesses in Southeast Asian countries to further enhance guest experiences and enable seamless access to tourism attractions for Chinese visitors.

The number of Chinese tourists to Switzerland went down by 14.3% YoY in the first half of 2016 according to Swiss Federal Statistical Office.

The number of Chinese tourists stayed overnight in Swiss hotels reached 1.4 million in 2015, an increase by 33%, becoming the fourth largest tourists origin country after Germany, the U.S., and UK.

However, 476 thousand Chinese tourists stayed overnight in Swiss hotels in the first half of 2016, down by 80 thousand (14.3%). Terrorist attacks and more complex Schengen visa application process are the primary factors leading to less Chinese tourists visits.

The minimum buy of WeChat Moments advertisement is further reduced from 200,000 yuan (US$30,418) to 50,000 yuan (US$7605) in an attempt to attract more small and medium companies.

Monthly active users (“MAUs”) of WeChat, including Chinese version Weixin, reached 762 million in Q1 2016 according to the latest Tencent financial results. And, Tencent reported total revenues of RMB31,995 million (USD4,952 million) in Q1 2016, an increase of 43% over the first quarter of 2015.

Related: Unwritten rules of Weibo and WeChat Feed Stream

In addition to the reduced minimum budget requirement, WeChat also launched two different formats for advertising on its social networking stream Moments: video and coupon ads.

The latest WeChat Moments video ad allowed companies to display their ads through video. Video ad charged 180 yuan on CPM basis in core cities, 120 yuan in key cities, and 60 yuan in ordinary cities.

WeChat Moments display ads consisted of profile image and title of the advertiser, promotion message, ad image, external link, and engagement. Customers could click “View Details” to go to the set URL and the URL could be of a certain post of WeChat official account or a H5 page. Feed ads were displayed the fifth from top and would disappear to the users who were not engaged within six hours.

Related: Weibo to Offer Video Advertising in H1 2016

WeChat Video Ads

Core cities (2) in China included Beijing and Shanghai; major cities (35) included Tianjin, Chongqing, Harbin, Shenyang, Xi’an, Wuhan, Changsha, Nanjing, Chengdu, Hangzhou and other provincial capital cities and active cities in China; common cities were cities except core cities and major cities in China.

WeChat Moments video ads consisted of profile image and title of the advertiser, promotion message, video, and engagement. The video ad would display in less than 6 seconds unless users click to see the complete version. WeChat Moments video ads has had no external link yet.

WeChat Moments ads could target customers by age, gender, region, smartphone operation system, networks, and interests. 14 industries have been allowed to buy Moments ads including apparel, household appliances, internet service providers, personal products, retail and entertainment, education, home decorations, foods and beverage, transportation, IT, consumer products and digital products, finance, operator, and real estate.

Related free download from Incitez: WeChat Marketing Guide

Also read: China Social Media Users Insights in 2015

WeChat officially launched a new ad format on its social networking section Moments called Coupon Ads last Friday.

Tencent’s WeChat team launched ads for Moments steam in January 2015 and video ads this April.

Coupon Ads can be displayed in Moment feed stream with demographic targeting. It supports text, images and video formats. Once users click on “Collect” text link, they will be redirected to a coupon page and get the coupon, which can be used for their own purchase or shared with friends.

Pizza Hub launched two Coupon Ads campaigns for its Durian Pizza with a 15s video and a text/image respectively.Coupon collection rate was increased by 8 to 10 times.

Also read: WeChat Payment reached over 300K retail stores

Sogou, one of the top three search engines in China after Baidu and Qihoo 360, announced their cooperation with Microsoft Bing with the launch of two new products: Sogou English Search and Sogou Scholar Search.

While conducting academic research online, a lot of Chinese are more inclined to use Google search which for the reasons we all know can not be easily accessed. The new vertical search products from Sogou specifically target this segment of users, who have higher education and income levels.

Sogou English Search users can also type in Chinese to search for English content.

Also read: Baidu Mobile Search Users Reached 663 Mn in March 2016

Tencent’s WeChat team has started offering video ads in its social networking section Moments with a minimum CPM of 180 yuan (US$27.7) for Beijing and Shanghai targeting.

WeChat Advertisements are ads in WeChat Moments, a social networking section on WeChat, based on geographic and demographic targeting. It is displayed on the fifth posts.

WeChat Moments ads can be used for branding, promoting Official Accounts and mobile apps. Targeting options include geo-targeting, demographic targeting, device targeting, and interests targeting. Real-time reporting is available in the backend system.

Depending on the targeting cities, CPM varies from 50 yuan to 150 yuan (US$23) with Shanghai and Beijing the most expensive (150 yuan/CPM), followed by 20 top cities (100 yuan/CPM) and other. Video ads are recently made available in Moments with extra 20% on top of the existing CPM pricing.

The fixed CPM pricing requires pre-booking, 5 days to 28 days in advance, and a minimum budget of 50,000 yuan. Real-time bidding is also available from 30 yuan/CPM requiring a minimum spend of 1,000 yuan per day.

Different levels of budget get different levels of support. If you just meet the minimum budget requirement, you can only publish one photo under the text and photo ad format while those with at least 5 million yuan budget can publish 9 photos.

You can get a free WeChat online marketing guide here (registration required).

BMW Video Ads on WeChat Moments

You can scan the QR code below to see details of this BMW campaign:

Also read: WeChat Marketing Insights 2015

Total revenues of all Chinese search engine companies reached 80.76 billion (US$12.48 billion) in 2015 with an increase of 34.7% according to iResearch.

China’s search engine advertising revenues totaled 68.26 billion yuan (US$10.55 billion) in 2015, an increase of 32.2% YoY.

Baidu continued to dominate China search engine market with over 80% market share by advertising revenues, followed by Google China (9.2%), Qihoo 360 (4.9%) and Sogou (4%). Qihoo 360 has been growing fast, whose revenues were still behind Sogou at the end of Q2 2015.

Qihoo 360 announced the launch in Hong Kong of Shangyi on 31 March 2016, which is a set of integrated data and marketing analytics tools designed to help local and overseas marketers and advertisers identify the unique characteristics of Chinese netizens in order to optimize their marketing strategies and enhance business growth.

Read more: China’s Mobile Search Market Insights

Qihoo 360 announced the launch in Hong Kong of Shangyi on 31 March 2016, which is a set of integrated data and marketing analytics tools designed to help local and overseas marketers and advertisers identify the unique characteristics of Chinese netizens in order to optimize their marketing strategies and enhance business growth.

Through understanding the behavior of Chinese netizens, and analyzing the insights obtained, Qihoo 360 Shangyi will help brands provide over 700 million Internet users in China with more effective brand experiences, and grasp the opportunities in the China market through both mobile and desktop devices.

China is one of the fastest-growing Internet search engine markets in the world. Market size reached RMB56 billion in the third quarter of 2015, representing an increase of about 40% year-over-year, with search engine marketing accounting for more than 30%, at RMB22 billion. According to a recent iResearch market survey, the market is expected to continue to expand rapidly, reaching RMB168 billion in 2018. With this surging trend, companies from around the world are looking to connect more effectively with customers in China. And with the big data analytics services offered by Shangyi, companies can now target the right audience more effectively, and understand their behavioral patterns and habits, so as to adjust their marketing strategies whenever appropriate.

said Mr. David Ip, Global Business Advisor of Qihoo 360 Technology Co., Ltd.

Shangyi is Qihoo 360’s first marketing analytics tool backed by the big data generated from Qihoo 360’s more than 1.6 billion users, helping companies develop intelligent marketing and promotion strategies. Shangyi’s core competitive edges include:

• offers in-depth data mining technology and multi-platform data processing capability collected from Qihoo 360’s big data pool
• consolidates multiple data sources, and offers data analytical reports in terms of search and browsing behavior, demographics and geographical segmentation
• meets multiple needs of marketing analytics – targeting audiences in multiple ways, and supporting a variety of analytical approaches

There is a huge variety of consumer preferences and behavioral patterns among Chinese netizens in different regions and demographic segments, which can be a real hurdle for overseas companies entering the China market. Qihoo 360 enjoys a leading position in China’s Internet industry. Its brand effect and comprehensive big data resources provide an optimized channel for overseas companies, helping them to make the right business decisions and achieve better operational efficiency when targeting audiences within particular regions, user groups and behavioral segments,

added Mr. David Ip.

E-commerce brand Ebates and online travel website Hotels.com have both deployed Qihoo 360’s search engine marketing solutions to drive their brand exposure and awareness, and boost traffic on their websites.

Ms. Catherine Lu, Vice President, Marketing, Ebates Inc. Greater China, said, “As one of Mainland China’s Internet giants, Qihoo 360 played a crucial role in our entrance and expansion in the China market. Through Qihoo 360’s search platform,

Ebates has successfully gained brand awareness and accelerated its sales in China according to Ms. Catherine Lu, Vice President, Marketing, Ebates Inc. Greater China. They believe that Shangyi will offer global brands more in-depth and effective marketing data by analyzing users’ search behavior and geographic and demographic segmentation.

Hotels.com are also pleased that they have successfully driven their brand awareness and business expansion through Qihoo 360’s search platform. Hotels.com increased orders by 50% year-on-year.

Contact us here if you’d like to open a Qihoo 360 SEM account.

Also read: Weibo Search Users Insights 2015

Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan were the top three inbound tourism sources in January 2016 according to China National Tourism Administration.

Also read: China Travel Market Overview for Q4 2015

China had 109 million outbound tourists who spent a total amount of US$229 billion on shopping in 2015 according to GFK. China was the largest outbound country in the world.

GFK’s survey showed that more than half of Chinese travelers were between 15 and 29 years old, 37% between 30 and 44 years old, and about a tenth between 45 and 59 years old.

The top five most popular travel destinations of Chinese travelers have been South Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan since the beginning of 2016. Europe was also a popular outbound destination of Chinese tourists. Chinese travelers visiting Thailand, South Korea and Japan in November 2015 grew by an increase of 263%, 112% and 157% respectively.

Thailand, South Korea and Hong Kong were the most favored destinations among the post-85s and post-90s in China in 2015. Since 2014, a large number of Chinese tourists began to pay more attention to the cultural landscape and historical heritage of tourism destinations instead of convenient transportation and low travel cost. Travel for shopping was a new trend among Chinese outbound travelers.

Two-thirds of China post-85s and post-90s were high-income groups according to GFK and they will be expected to spend more on travel in the future. Understanding likes and dislikes of China’s travelers especially the post-85s and post-90s were essential for attracting these travelers.

Also read: China Travel Insights for Chinese New Year 2016

As of 31 December 2015, the number of travel agencies in China reached 27,621 according to China National Tourism Administration.

The top ten inbound traveler regions by the total number of person trips are Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Macau, the U.S., Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Thailand and Russia.

China travel agencies organized a total number of 42.18 million person trips and received 45.29 million person trips in Q4 2015, an increase of 14.68% and 14.59% YoY.

Jiangsu (17%), Shanghai (9%), and Zhejiang (9%) are the top 3 travel destinations in China in Q4 2015.

Southeast Asia countries are among China’s most popular outbound tourism destinations, accounting for 27% of total person-trips in Q4 2015.

Also read: China Travel Insights for Chinese New Year 2016

WeChat is launching a separate app for enterprises according to Weixin Team. It’s currently under internal testing with selected enterprises.

WeChat Enterprise will be available in one to two months supporting iOS, Android, Mac and Windows.

Tencent developed communications software for enterprises back in 2003 called RTX, and WeChat Enterprise is being developed based on RTX and mainly for companies’ internal communications.

Tencent launched WeChat Enterprise Account in 2014 which might be confusing to some users now with the launch of WeChat Enterprise version. The two are different; Enterprise Account, similar to Official Account, is based on the current WeChat app while the enterprise version is a separate app. But, Enterprise Account users can migrate to WeChat Enterprise version easily.

Read more: The Value of WeChat Official Accounts

China social media users maintained a rapid growth across all age groups in 2015 according to Kantar. The most popular social media was WeChat, Qzone and Weibo.

50.9% Chinese internet users used social media in 2015 with an increase of 16.9 percentage points compared with 2014. Users aged between 16 to 25 years old were the driving force and the penetration rate reached 71.5% in 2015.

China social media users increased largely in 2015. Social media between 35 to 45 years old grew with an increase of more than 20% in 2015 and users above 55 years old doubled in penetration rate.

WeChat (75.9%) was still the most popular social media in 2015, followed by Qzone (50.5%) and Weibo (35.0%). Monthly active users of Weibo in December 2015 grew by 34% year over year to 236 million and 83% of which were mobile users according to Weibo.

481.5 million people who accounted for 35.4% of the total Chinese population were estimated to visit social media at least once a month according to eMarterter.

Also read: China Social Media Users Insights in 2015

Transaction values of all Chinese travel agencies reached about 365.29 billion yuan (US$55.88 billion) and the online reached about 73.55 billion yuan (US$11.25 billion) in 2015 according to ctcnn.com.

Transaction values of Chinese travel agencies reached about 365.29 billion yuan in 2015 with an increase of 11.2% compared with 328.51 billion yuan (US$50.25 billion) in 2014. The online travel agency market reached 73.55 billion yuan with an increase of 71.4% in 2015 compared with 42.9 billion yuan in 2014.

The online penetration rate reached 20.1% with an increase of about 7 percentage points over 2014 (13.1%). Online penetration will continue to grow in 2016.

Ctrip, Tuniu, and CY were the top three largest OTAs by transaction values in 2015. The three accounted for 50% of total OTA market share. CY increased its market share in 2015 with 3.7 percentage points higher than 2014 and Tuniu increased by 3.3 percentage points compared with 2014.

Also read: China Outbound Cruise Travel Market Insight 2015

WeChat enterprise account is a mobile service for enterprises to establish connections among enterprises and staff, upstream and downstream supply chains, and enterprise IT systems. Enterprise account is designated for companies, government agencies, schools, hospitals, non-government organizations and other institutions.

WeChat enterprise account can help enterprises realize the effective mobile office with low-cost and fast efficiency compared with app promotion, and transform enterprise production, management, cooperation and operation processes to mobile. WeChat enterprise accounts as a tool for transforming IT systems to mobile can help enterprises:

1) Efficient mobile office. After the setting up of the enterprise accounts, enterprises can utilize its basic tools to strengthen the communication and coordination of staff, enhance the corporate culture, bulletin notification and knowledge management, and realize the mobility of enterprise applications quickly;

2) Low development cost. Companies won’t spend much on enterprise accounts compared with apps.

3) Zero threshold. Company members can scan the code to follow and users are able to use smoothly without special learning.

WeChat enterprise account could accelerate the integration of social relationships and work relationships. Most users communicated with workmates through WeChat during working hours according to the research of Tencent based on enterprises who have operated WeChat enterprise accounts.

WeChat could support an easy communication channel for business. The enterprise account can facilitate the communication between supervisors and subordinates, and reduce work pressure to some extent. Besides, it can make unfamiliar workmates or customers communicate more freely.

Monthly active users of WeChat reached 650 million ending November 2015. The number of WeChat enterprise account reached 600,000 as of November 2015 and overall users totaled over 10 million. Daily active users were 2 million and daily messages in November 2015 exceeded 12 million.

By establishing enterprise account, enterprises could realize a compact business circle, functional ecology system, and multiple social circles. Enterprise accounts can reconstruct the business pattern and bring in more opportunities for companies.

Also read: The Value of WeChat Official Accounts

China internet advertising market has entered a mature stage in 2015. Marketing on Weibo and WeChat has been one of the most effective methods to promote brands and companies in China in 2015.

Schwarzkopf

Schwarzkopf sold out nearly three million bottles of shampoo on Double 11 2015; sales value reached 9.7 million yuan (US$1.48 million) with an increase by 78% compared with the previous year. It became the best seller on Tmall in its category..

Schwarzkopf had prepared for Double 11 as early as June 2015. They implemented two marketing activities for the shopping festival. First, Schwarzkopf invited Mark Bustos, a famous hairstylist in Wall Street, to cut hair for Shanghai citizens and Alibaba staff; second, Schwarzkopf made a short film Begin from the Head which had a positive influence on the public.

In addition, Schwarzkopf invited SNH48 to endorse a series of FRESHLIGHT products which targeted the young female. The number of consumer visits to Schwarzkopf Tmall flagship were 2.5 times higher than any other periods when SNH48 performed on Double 11 Evening Party.

UCAR BEAT U

UCAR released a series posts “Beat U” on June 25th, 2015 insinuating users should boycott Uber. With celebrities and famous personages holding BEAT U warning signs this marketing activity generated public attention.

These posts were directly against Uber’s drivers with no legal operating license, privacy disclosure and safety problems. Although many internet users were objectionable towards this set of ads and some pointed out a mistake in a post, it was a successful advertisement that generated awareness and influence.

UCAR had left a clear position as safety and high privacy for prospective customers during the activity. In addition, UCAR had provided vouchers three days later which drove downloads of its mobile app dramatically.

The Most Passionate Resignation Letter

A teacher in Zhengzhou China submitted her resignation letter with only ten Chinese characters which meant “the world is big; I want to go see it”. The resignation letter was considered as the most passionate letter and caused a marketing fever in China.

Sprite, Qihoo 360, Tencent News, Yongche, Alipay, 58.com, Subaru, Meituan, Ctrip, Renren, Suning, Hunantv, Infiniti, iCarsclub, Youku, Alimama, Baidu Post Bar, QQ Music, 360 Mobile Guard, Didi, Sinopec Group, China Mobile, etc. seized the opportunity to publicize their brands. Some brand even gained millions of views.

Colors of the Dress

A dress was fiercely talked about among China internet users in Feb 2015. Whether the dress was black and blue or white and gold was discussed among millions of internet users both in China and foreign social media.

Roman, the brand of this dress, was the biggest winner of this “debate”. Its women clothing sales increased by 347% and brand became worldwide known.

WE

Li Chen and Fan Bingbing, two famous celebrities in China, announced their romantic relationship with a photo on Weibo with a simple text “We” on May 29th, 2015. And then companies and brands began marketing with “WE”. L’Oreal Paris, Pechoin, Hanhoo, ZMC, OSM, SIBU, CIVIER, Kotex, Durex, etc. who used similar pictures and creative words with “we” to advertise for their brands or companies.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) ice bucket challenge was launched by Pete Frates, a famous baseball player in Boston College who was suffering from the disease. Persons who were named should either challenge the ice bucket within 24 hours or donate US$100 to fight against ALS.

ALS ice bucket challenge was spread from overseas social media. The challenge was first initiated by Lei Jun (president of Xiaomi), Robin Li (president of Baidu), and other famous figures in China on the internet and technology industry. Then, celebrities joined, and many citizens spontaneously participated in the activity.

ALS ice bucket challenge was a very effective combination of marketing and public welfare. It got donations of 257 million yuan (US37.57 million) in a month far more than the expectation of Pete Frates. Many brands also took advantage of this campaign for marketing among which the most famous one was Samsung naming Apple for the ice bucket challenge.

Also read: China Social Media Marketing Trends in 2015

China’s online retail market reached 945.1 billion yuan (US$143.5 billion) with a growth rate of 45% in Q3 2015 according to Analysys. The growth rate was lower compared with the previous quarters in 2015.

The growth rate of China’s online retail market slowed down in 2015. The market tended to mature. However, total online retail sales only accounted for 12.3% of total retail sales. The online market still faced enormous development opportunities.

More shoppers were active on the mobile end than PC in Q3 2015. Mobile online sales reached 524.3 billion yuan (US$79.6 billion) which surpassed PC as the major online shopping channel as of Q3 2015.

The business pattern of China’s B2C market remains the same in Q3 2015. Tmall and Jingdong dominated the market both in market and business innovative capacity. E-commerce suppliers were trying to win subdivision market to seek a breakthrough.

China’s online retail market has been stabilized since 2014. Three business formats have shaped, online fair, online department store, and online discount retailer. Tmall, Jingdong, and Vipshop were representative companies of each format.

Tmall was the earliest online fair platform in China which has built a relatively perfect system for followers. Tmall has been devoted to building a high-quality shopping platform by strict selection of merchants and to provide consumers a safe and efficient platform. Total online transaction values on Tmall reached 91.2 billion yuan (US$14.25 million) on Double 11 in 2015.

Jingdong started as an online magneto-optical store, but soon diversified, selling electronics, mobile phones, computers, etc. Self-built delivery stations and pick-up stations were the core of Jingdong’s diversified services.

Vipshop was a leading online discount retailer for brands in China. The Company offered high-quality and popular branded products to consumers throughout China at a significant discount from retail prices targeting at women buyers. Vipshop reported net revenues up by 63% to 8.67 billion yuan (US$1.36 billion) in Q3 2015.

Also read: China Retail V.S. Online Shopping 2015

China’s travel market reached a total number of of 4.12 billion person-trips in 2015 according to China National Tourism Administration. China’s domestic travel market exceeded 40 million person-trips contributing over 4 trillion yuan (US$0.61 trillion) for China.

120 million travelers traveled abroad in 2015. China ranked first globally in the number of travelers and total travel spend. Data of National Tourism Data Center showed that the travel market has created 10.2% of the total jobs in China.

Korea has been a popular outbound destination for China’s travelers. The total number of 6.11 million tourists traveled to Korea in 2015 which accounted for over 40% of Korea’s inbound travelers according to CCTV financial reports.

Over 70% China’s tourists traveled to Korea for shopping in 2015, 20% for experiencing Korean culture, and the other for plastic surgery and sightseeing according to Korea Tourism Organization. Chinese travelers spent an average of US$2,200 per person in Korea, much higher than foreign travelers’ average spend in 2015.

China’s consumers spent much time in duty-free shops. Each China’s traveler spent about 2,800 yuan (US$424.57) in Lotte according to the manager of Lotte duty-free shop in Korea. The consumption was predicted to increase by at least 10% at the end of 2015. China’s tourists brought in US$22 billion for Korea accounting for 1.6% of Korea’s GDP in terms of spend on accommodation, transport, shopping, and others.

To maintain China’s outbound travelers to Korea, the Korean government was considering to provide visa-free and a package of policies according to the president of Korea.

Also read: China Outbound Travelers Shopping Overview 2015

Chinese research company Analysis listed Baidu, Tencent, Sogou, Youku, Alibaba, Liebao, 360, Sohu, Google China, Weibo, Autohome, Letv, Netease, Sina, and Soufun as the most innovative companies in China’s online advertising market. Innovation capacity was mainly determined by manufacturers’ media operation capabilities, technical strength, and future monetization ability.

Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Google China, 360, Youku, iQIYI, Sogou, Sohu, Soufun, Letv, Liebao, Weibo, Autohome, Netease, and Sina had top operational capacities in China’s online advertising market according to Analysys. The execution and operational capabilities were mainly indicated by market share according to Analysys.

Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent lead China’s internet market whose innovation capacity and operational capacity was relatively high. Baidu launched Duer (Secretary of Baidu) in the 2015 Baidu World Conference targeting intelligent interaction field. But, Tencent was ranked the most innovative Chinese company by BCG, 12th globally.

Basing on a wide range of services and information basing on Baidu’s powerful search technology and intelligent interaction, Duer could provide users with more subdivisions of services through continuous learning and alternating people’s behavior as a full-time secretary. Currently, Baidu has reached a plurality of vertical O2O fields and it would further open up the capital flow and logistics of O2O market to promote more service-linked products.

Alibaba tended to integrate branding resources after the acquisition of AdChina. Alimama released “Dharma Sword”, the big data marketing platform based on Alibaba’s large number of user accounts, and developed targeted marketing services based on the big data of its e-commerce market in 2015. After the acquisition of Youku Tudou, Alibaba has built video e-commerce industry chain by the further integration of user data.

Tencent built its huge social marketing services around the Wide Click-through service. Wide Click-through DMP service was formally launched in 2015 through which advertisers could reach potential consumers by precise analysis of user data. Tencent cooperated with Jingdong to build “Pinshang”, a special marketing platform for brands.

Revenues from the mobile end increased dramatically in Qihoo 360 by deepening search commercialization process. Qihoo launched its own smartphone, which could open new opportunities in future.

Youku Tudou is a guru in the video advertising market and has been more powerful after joining Alibaba league. Youku Tudou began the intelligent search service targeting video e-commerce market in 2015. By enhancing technology and innovation capacity, Youku Tudou is expected to make further development in e-commerce.

iQiyi has maintained a leading position in self-made content of the online video market and invested a large amount of money in copyright. Targeting the post-90s, self-made content of iQiyi is much distinctive to attract consumers and improve their marketing value. Advertising forms are more diversified on iQiyi.

Sogou search traffic is relatively small compared with Baidu and Haosou. With its collaboration with WeChat and Zhihu (China’s Quora), it has direct access to the quality content on the two platforms. It will likely to keep its traffic growth.

Liebao promoted its advertising platform “Liehu” to integrate data, marketing, and other resources targeting native advertising services based on its overseas resources. Liebao has cooperated with Facebook, Tencent, Google and others to increase its market share.

Google China has deepened users’ innovative search service under diversified and contextualization usage. It entered the voice search market and managed to access to the mobile internet through mobile phones in 2015. Google DoubleClick achieved a breakthrough in native advertising technology, cross-screen delivery, and Programmatic Guaranteed delivery. From recent dozens of job position opening in China, Google may likely find its presence again in China.

Sohu slowed down in advertising growth rate. Sohu News spared efforts to build vertical polymerization channels and local stations. Sohu Video tried to reduce copyright competition stress with the self-made content in 2015. Sohu hoped to strengthen long tail traffic construction to attract younger users and improve content production structure.

SouFun’s e-commerce revenues rose while online advertising revenues fall in 2015 which indicated that advertisers’ marketing structure changed. With real estate market turning better, SouFun could gradually transform to a real estate commerce platform. Advertising revenues would continue to shrink in the future.

Letv created “platform + content + application + terminal” ecosystem and integrated the internet advertising resources by further accelerating the structuring the field of intelligent hardware in 2015. Letv strengthened the investment in high-quality content copyright and combined content and services to enhance the user experience and media marketing value to drive advertising revenues.

Weibo managed to build interest-based social circles to lay the foundation for the e-business in 2015. By the increase of the number of Weibo users and digital marketing services, monetization capability of Weibo would continue to maintain high in the future. Meanwhile, how to improve its ecological system, how to change the image as an information and marketing platform, and how to build a strong relationship with the e-commerce suppliers have become major challenges for Weibo’s future development.

Many automotive internet media expanded their business on automobile transaction in 2015. Automotive finance and e-commerce revenues increased which was mainly due to advertisers’ larger input in 2015. Autohome had a tough road to creating new advertising methods, increasing advertising revenues, and keeping a high market share in the future.

Netease News cooperated with Dianping, 58.com, and other internet service companies to improve localization services to meet the needs of users as well as strengthening its commercial value. Netease improved its content by we media and launched we media platform to strengthen content production capacity.

Sina accelerated multi-dimensional development on the mobile terminal in 2015. It expects to improve its mobile information content to enhance user stickiness and monetization in the future, localize information and connect with O2O e-business and other value-added services, promote diversified profit models, and promote the commercialization of mobile terminals.

Also read: China Social Media Marketing Trends in 2015

China’s online accommodation booking market reached 24.983 billion yuan (US$3.89 billion) representing a QoQ growth of 27.98% and YoY growth of 82.16% in the third quarter of 2015 according to Analysys.

China’s online travel market reached 122.23 billion yuan (US$19.07 billion) with an increase of 18.0% QoQ and 45.9% YoY in the third quarter of 2015 according to iResearch. The OTA market in China reached 5.96 billion yuan (US$0.93 billion) in Q3 2015 with an increase of 48.8% compared to the same period last year, led by Ctrip and eLong.

The online accommodation market maintained a rapid growth in the third quarter of 2015 under the constant promotions of China’s online accommodation and online travel agencies. Overall transactions of online travel market totaled US$19.07 billion in the third quarter and the OTA market in China gained US$0.93 billion.

Ctrip reached revenues of 10.762 billion yuan (US$1.68 billion) with 43.08% market share. Transaction values of Qunar were 5.63 billion yuan (US$0.88 billion) accounting for 22.54% online accommodation booking market. Ctrip, Qunar, eLong and Alitrip combined account for almost 85% total market share, 4.14 percentage points higher compared to the previous quarter.

Continue reading on China online travel booking users in Q3 2015 here.

China’s online accommodation booking companies have attempted in exploring more effective cooperation modes and integration methods between the online and offline. By an increasing number of China’s tourists and promotion of industrial chains, the online accommodation booking market in China will continue to grow in the future.

Also read: China Short-term Accommodation Market Overview 2015

WeChat launched “friends-shared coupons” service last month with wihich coupons distributed on WeChat can be shared among friends. WeChat users can search for coupons their friends have through “coupons” service when dining, shopping or entertaining.

Shared coupons can be received at offline stores and will show in “Coupons” section on WeChat for both themselves and their friends after sharing. When the shared coupons are used by friends, users will be notified. When necessary, users can also search “Coupons” for shared coupons they need.

When using the service, the shared coupons will be classified based on the location to provide users with rich and convenient choices. Each coupon has detailed graphics and text presentation which enhance consumer experience and help them find their favorates.

Retailers can only distribute shared coupons offline and send to consumers. And, when users use the coupons, retailers can check and process in the background. “Friends-shared coupons” service is opened to the public on certain categories of products on the 18th November 2015 and will expand to more in future. Available categories are as follows:

Each coupon has detailed graphics and text presentation which enhance consumer experience and help them find their favorates. Retailers can only distribute shared coupons offline and send to consumers. And, when users use the coupons, retailers can check and process in the background. “Friends-shared coupons” service is opened to the public on certain categories of products on the 18th November 2015 and will expand to more in future. Available categories are as follows:

Also read: China Social Media Users Insights in 2015

China’s online video market reached 11.53 billion yuan (US$1.90 billion) with a growth of 31.9% QoQ and 62.7% YoY in the third quarter of 2015 according to iResearch. Online video advertising accounted for 56.3% of the total online video revenues, among which 39.9% of 2.59 billion yuan (US$0.40 billion) were from mobile.

China’s online video market maintained a high growth rate in the third quarter of 2015 although the GDP slowed down. 56.3% China’s online video revenues came from the online advertising for 6.49 billion yuan (US$1.01 billion), 8.4 percentage points lower than the ratio of Q2 2015. Although online video advertising remained a dominant revenue source, non-advertising sources such as video value-added service revenues and others increased slightly.

Copyright distribution declined in the third quarter of 2015 compared to the previous quarter this year while video value-added service revenues increased slightly. Online video companies should make deeper research on users’ preference and make the video products more catered to consumers to improve non-advertising revenues.

China’s online video advertising market in Q3 2015 increased by 14.8% compared to the previous quarter this year and 56.1% compared to the same period last year. Overall, China online video advertising market has entered a stable growth period thus online video companies should provide a richer and more accurate video marketing services for advertisers to maintain a high growth rate.

2.59 billion yuan (US$0.40 billion) video advertising revenues were from mobile, accounting for 39.9% of the overall online advertising market and 22.5% of the overall online video market. The mobile video advertising market only made up 24.2% in the third quarter of 2014 and 35.4% in the second quarter of 2015. With further development of mobile internet and mobile services, video advertising on the mobile terminal will maintain a steady growth.

Also read: China Online Advertising Insights Q3 2015

Sina Weibo announced to launch video advertising in the first half of 2016 as it seeks new revenue sources to maintain robust growth. The new advertising will appear in the users’ Weibo news feed with geographic and demographic targeting options. Video ads would display less than 10 seconds and will automatically play under Wi-Fi environment.

Large brand advertisers can buy video advertising by CPM and small and medium-sized companies can enjoy a lower minimum bid price especially for the e-commerce companies. However, the required bid price will be much higher than the current Weibo advertising price.

Monthly active users of Weibo reached 222 million as of September 2015 and 85% from mobile, an increase of 33% compared to the same period last year.

Weibo reported a trial of video ads in a small scale and plans to carry out in a national range in the first half of 2016.

Currently the most popular advertising channel on Weibo is self-serving social ads. A bit similar to Facebook ads, advertisers have flexible targeting and budget options. At Incitez, we managed Weibo campaigns on Weibo across publication, travel, finance and education industries; some like publication and finance achieved tremendous success with satisfying ROI.

Also read: China Social Media Users Insights in 2015

Female consumers aged between 30 and 39 years old in metropolis cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are the driving force of China’s cross-border online shopping market this year according to a survey conducted by the Voice of China.

Consumers aged from 30 to 39 years old account for 50.7% of the total number of buyers and the group of female buyers account for 82.6% in metropolis cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

35% of China’s online shopping consumers bought cross-border products online in 2015; and, 73% considered the price as the main reason for cross-border shopping according to PayPal and Ipsos.

Retail sales via mobile devices in China are expected to increase by 85.1% annually to reach US$333.99 billion in 2015 according to eMarketer. Cross-border online shopping market on mobile end has exceeded PC this year. Peak shopping period is from 5pm to 6pm and 10pm to 11pm. Most shoppers purchase once or twice each month and spend between 500 yuan (US$78.23) and 1,000 yuan (US$156.46).

Pursuant to lower price, varieties of products, near in location and influenced by media and marketing, Chinese cross-border online shoppers are likely to buy cosmetics from South Korea, followed by mother care products, clothes, magazines as well as foods. However, the existing long delivery time may discourage consumers shopping desires.

Also read: China Annual Cross-border Consumption in 2015

The advertising business admanGo’s survey data shows that internet advertising accounts for only 14% of total advertising spend in Hong Kong in Q3 2015.

Most online advertising were on PC or laptops in Hong Kong while only 4% targeting the mobile devices. TV advertising accounted for 30% of the overall advertising spend, newspapers 30%, and magazines 9%. 39% advertising is focused on print, higher than the overall China’s advertising on print media.

China’s online advertising is expected to account for 43.7% of the entire advertising market, 23.7% from mobile. Print media advertising accounta for 9.0%, TV 29.3% which are declining year after year predicted by eMarketer. And the total advertising market in Hong Kong is estimated to increase by 6.2% compared to last year with the fastest growth from online adverting according to ZenithOptimedia.

Also read: China Social Media Marketing Trends in 2015

Sina Weibo reported net revenues of US$124.7 million for the third quarter this year, compared to US$84.1 million for the same period last year. Advertising and marketing revenues for the third quarter of 2015 totaled US$105.9 million, compared to US$65.4 million for the same period last year.

The increase was mainly driven by Weibo’s advertising that could enable its customers to perform people marketing and target audiences based on user demographics, social relationships, interests, and behaviors, to achieve greater relevance, engagement and marketing effectiveness on Weibo.

Income from operations for the third quarter this year was US$13.9 million, compared to a loss from operations of US$7.8 million for the same period last year. Non-GAAP income from operations for the third quarter of 2015 was US$21.5 million, compared to a non-GAAP loss from operations of US$3.9 million for the same period last year.

Monthly active users (“MAUs”) of Weibo reached 222 million as of September 2015 and 85% from mobile, increasing 33% compared to the same period last year and 10 million compared to the previous quarter owing for strong consumption of video, photo, and key opinion leader content. Daily active users (“DAUs”) reached 100 million on average for September 2015, up 30% year over year.

Sina’s Third Quarter 2015 Highlights

• Net revenues increased 48% year over year to US$124.7 million in Q3 2015;
• Advertising and marketing revenues increased 62% year over year to US$105.9 million this quarter compared to US$65.4 million for the same period last year;
• Net income attributable to Weibo’s ordinary shareholders was $14.5 million, or diluted net income per share of $0.07, compared to a net loss of $6.7 million for the same period last year, or diluted net loss per share of $0.03;
• Monthly active users reached 222 million in September 2015, up 33% year over year and 85% from mobile;
• Daily active users reached 100 million on average for September 2015, up 30% year over year.

Read more on Tencent Q3 2015performance here.

Also read: The Value of WeChat Official Accounts

Source: Sina Weibo

The number of Chinese outbound tourists reached 107 million person trips in 2014. More and more travelers tend to travel abroad during the holidays. The total number of China’s tourists is estimated to exceed 4.1 billion person trips in 2015.

64% users are inclined to go abroad during the New Year’s Day holiday, and 69% tend to travel abroad during the Chinese New Year with 5 percentage points higher.

The young Chinese generation is full of adventurous spirit and independent consciousness. Most of them prefer free and easy tours rather than group tours. About 76% young users will pay for free and easy tours and 19% will go for individual trips during New Year’s Day in outbound countries. As high as 81.3% young people choose the free and easy tours during Chinese New Year, and only 3.3% users are likely to travel with groups.

As drawing near of the end of 2015, 57.56% users are determined to plan their journeys depending on the number of holiday days. 16.89% users will travel where is mostly appreciated by the public.

25.56% young users will determine their destinations by considering costs and salaries. Survey results of lailaihui.com show that 69.72% users will spend less than 5,000 yuan (US$784.9) on outbound travel during New Year’s Day, and only 6.77% are willing to spend over 8,000 yuan (US$1,255.9).

Compared with the average budget during New Year’s Day, Chinese young people would rather pay more for the Chinese New Year holiday: about 51% users are glad to spend over 5,000 yuan (US$784.9) and 20% to spend over 8,000 yuan (US$1,255.9) during holidays.

Chinese post-80s and post-90s account for about 31.8% of the total population. Due to different consumption habits and lifestyles from their parents, more and more young people prefer to travel during weekends or holidays. In recent years, outbound travel has become popular and the youth have contributed a lot to this market. Korea, Japan, Thailand, Australia, the USA and some European countries have become popular outbound destinations in recent years.

About 65% of the young generation enjoy traveling with friends during New Year’s Day and 21% will travel with families. However, 33% users will travel in families during Chinese New Year. 35% and 56% users are willing to spend 5 to 7 days on travel during New Year’s Day and Chinese New Year respectively.

On the way to travel, the cruise has become a hot new trend on the outbound travel market. More users choose to travel to the surrounding countries by cruise and 2.4% users will travel by cruise during Chinese New Year.

In the first half of 2015, the first-tier cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, had most citizens travel abroad, and second cities such as Taiyuan, Kunming and Xiamen also saw a large number of outbound travelers.

The rapid growth of mobile internet consumption has led consumers transferring from the PC client to the mobile client. Since January 2015, the number of active users on mobile apps has surpassed that of the PC side, and the gap is gradually increasing. The young generation are used to booking travel products on mobile apps.

Also read: More Chinese Travelers Active on Mobile Than PC

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, the number of global tourists grows 4% in the first 8 months of 2015. International tourists arrivals in Indonesia increased by 2.87%, and Chinese tourists to Indonesia grew by 20.74%.

According to the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism Policy Development and Research Institution, mainland Chinese travelers to Indonesia grew by 24.97% in August 2015, Egypt 25.51%, Singapore 23.28%, Taiwan  11.50% and the United Kingdom 16.68%.

In the first eight months in 2015, international tourists to Indonesia reached approximately 850,542 people, and the number of Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia reached 779,348, an increase of 20.74%. They entered Indonesia mainly via Bali International Airport, Soviet Union in Jakarta Gano – Hatta International Airport and Sumatra, Riau Batam international Airport.

Since 2012, China had been the largest outbound tourism market in the world for 3 consecutive years, and China will invest more in the tourism industry.

Also read: China Hotel Search Behavior Overview 2015

Daily active Users of WeChat totaled 570 million in China in September 2015 according to Tencemt. Daily active users grew by 64%, compared with 49% in the same period last year. The majority of users were the post-90s and post-80s, and about 60% of users were the young generation from 15 to 29 years old.

As high as 93% of first-tier city citizens used WeChat, and even small counties and fourth-tier or fifth-tier cities had about 26% users. About 280 million minutes of audio chatting were made every day, equivalent to 540 years of phone calls. Users were most active at 10pm, 30 minutes earlier than the peak time last year. Japan, South Korea and the United States were common destinations of WeChat calls.

WeChat red envelopes were redefining new meanings that had become a new expression of love, happiness and even ways to celebrate festivals. On Mid-autumn Festival (Sep 27th 2015), about 100 million users received or sent red envelopes. On the eve of Spring Festival 2015, May 20th (a day to express love), Children’s Day, Chinese Valentine’s Day, Mid-Autumn Festival, etc. red envelope users were also very active. The driving force of WeChat red envelopes were the post-80s.

WeChat users on average read seven articles every day and one book every month. 20:00 pm to 10:00 pm was the peak time of reading. The post-90s liked reading news on entertainment gossip while the post-80s were more interested in national affairs.

Male users spent more on WeChat online shopping, 1.3 times higher than female users. Users had different shopping behaviors in different seasons. In September, users were more likely to buy mobile phone power bank, long johns, and selfie stick.

Over 70% of users played WeChat games every day and 15% of them played very frequently. Chess, puzzle and casual games are the most popular games.

Download the full e-book from Box.com or Baidu Cloud (passcode: mc3d).

Also read: The Value of WeChat Official Accounts

China’s domestic travel frequency has been gradually increasing based on Qunar’s data from January to September 2015.

Travelers under  21 years old account for 14.25% of the total, and most of them are accompanied by their parents during travel. The post-90s is the main driving force of China tourism market, accounting for 39.97% of the total online travel booking users. Consumers aged between 31 and 35 y-o account for the smallest percentage of total travelers. Travelers over the age of 36 get stabilized recovery.

Lovers and couples like traveling most, accounting for 44.66%, followed by the whole family trips and individual trip. The ratio of individual travelers is increasing.

With the improvement of economic development and income level, travel is becoming an important need in people’s living in China. Self-driving trips, budget travel, backpack travel and others are rapidly included in the territory of modern Chinese ways to travel. While most consumers travel as a planned trip, their advanced bookings are made in a relatively short period. 46.21% travelers make bookings 5 days in advance. Only 8.3% travelers may make bookings more than 30 days before the trip.

Mid- and low-end hotels are major preference of consumers. As high as 43.25% will book hotels under 300 yuan, and only 12.67% over 800 yuan.  Due to the popularization of Qunar, Ctrip, and other online hotel booking websites, more high-end hotel prices get deep discounts.

Among 32 capital cities in China, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou received most online bookings. Lhasa, Hohhot, Yinchuan and other midwestern residents rank at the bottom, who travel less.

Dali, Kunming, Lijiang, Xishuangbanna, Hong Kong, Jiuzhaigou, Sanya, and Beijing are top 8 inbound destinations; Bangkok, Pattaya, Krabi, Phuket, Bali Jeju and Seoul are top 7 Southeast Asian destinations. Citizens in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Shenzhen, Sanya, Chongqing and Xi’an are most willing to spend money on accommodation during tourism in order to enjoy a more comfortable travel.

Also reads: China to invest $278.7 Billion in Tourism in 2025

Since January 2015, the number of active users on mobile apps has surpassed that of the PC side, and the gap is gradually increasing. Online travel websites are increasing efforts to transform to mobile end to compete for more users.

Ctrip leads the online tourism market while Qunar attracts more consumers on mobile end, followed by LY, Alitrip and Tuniu.

Also read: China Mobile Internet Trend 2015

China users’ time spent on digital media has exceeded that on traditional media in 2015. Digital media is the largest media by ad revenue; online ad revenue will continue to grow, especially mobile ad revenues.

According to eMarketer, China internet users on average spend over 6 hours 8 minutes on media per day, of which over 3 hours on social media, 2 hours 40 minutes on TV, 11 minutes on  radio, 10 minutes on newspaper, and only 1 minute on magazine. 94.8% users over 18 years old watch television while spending less time is spent. 46% users use the internet (PC), 43.1% use smartphones, and 42% use feature phones.

The compound average growth rate (CAGA) of print media (newspaper and magazine) from 2011 to 2015 is -7.4%. The CAGA of newspaper is -5.1% and the CAGA of magazine is -7.4%. A report from Kantar shows the number of social media users in urban aras grow quickly from 28.6% in 2013 to 34% in 2014, which indicates that social media gradually become mainstream.

Diversification is one of the most obvious features of China social media, the post-90s are the largest group whose average age in 2014 is 30.4 years old; the average age in 2013 is 28.8 years old, which indicates that more different age-groups begin to use social media.

The number of users in the second, third and fourth-tier cities has increased while the number of users in first-tier cities has declined. The ratio of high education users dropped.

Chinese users prefer to use mobile internet for social media. Most people like using WeChat and Weibo on mobile apps while browsing BBS on computers. And different age level users have different internet behaviors. The post-90s often watch videos, the post-90s often shop online, and the post-70s often read news on the website.

In 2013, China internet users use Qzone most frequently while in 2014 WeChat became one of the most frequent-used mobile apps in China. More original content were generated on WeChat Weibo for the first time in 2014, and the engagement on WeChat was higher.

Chinese users who only read information on social media tend to be more according to data of Chinamedia 360. In 2014, 46% social media users didn’t participate in topic discussion or leave comments compared with 39% in 2013. A majority of users expected to get instant and practical information from social media; and users were more concious of privacies. Thus interactivities turn to be less.

Let’s take Wechat and Weibo as examples.

The average age of WeChat users is 26 years old, 97.7% users are under 50 years old. Most of WeChat users are employees, freelances, students and staff in state-owned enterprises.

WeChat has become an important part of Chinese life. 25% users on average open WeChat over 30 times per day, and 52.2% users over 10 times. About half of WeChat users have over 100 WeChat friends, 62.7% users have over 50 WeChat friends.

WeChat official account is one of the major features of WeChat. About 80% users would follow official accounts, especially accounts of companies and media. 29.1% official account users follow WeMedia accounts, 25.4% follow verified media accounts, 18.9% follow companies, 5.9% follow marketing accounts, and other 20.7% don’t follow any account. Over 40% users want to get information from official accounts.

Official subscription accounts can be categorized in entertainment, health, news, beauty and fashion by content. 42% accounts would interact with fans. Entertainment accounts are most welcome.

Combined MAU of Weixin (Chinese version of Wechat) and WeChat were 600 million as of 30 Jun 2015. Weibo MAUs reached 212 million in Q2 2015. 72% are 19 to 35 years old, the post-80s and post-90s are major parts of Weibo users. Male users made up of 60.9%, and female of 39.1%. Users in South China and East China are more active on Weibo than users in other parts of China.

Also read: WeChat Offers 8 Solutions For Smart Devices

In 2014, Tencent’s mobile revenue reached 22.171 billion yuan (US$3.571 billion) with popularization of WeChat. Now WeChat and Weibo are the two most active mobile apps in China. WeChat is a relatively new app compared with Weibo, but it far surpassed weibo in the number of users and monthly usage.

WeChat has become an important part of China mobile users’ life, and it has influenced their daily life from many aspects. It can take the role as an instant messeger and social networking platform. People can communicate with others whenever they like, and share with friends what they did, what they like, what is interesting…WeChat Official Accounts contribute a lot in this process.

WeChat official accounts integrate closely with friends circle; 20% WeChat users read news or messages through Official Accounts while 80% others would read in Moments. When shared more frequently, it would be read more. According to iReseach, 6 messages/articles were read by WeChat users on average per day; 4% WeChat users even read 20 and more per day.

Official Accounts take the role as connecting-to-all, people could connect with news, companies or services by following Official Accounts (including service accounts, subscription accounts) or Enterprise Accounts.

Nearly half of WeChat official accounts users had 6 to 15 official accounts. Most users regard it as a useful tool, and they can use it according to their own interests. 88.9% users are willing to recommend Official Accounts to their friends or families, and almost 99% users will follow more official accounts.

WeChat are gradually improving itself; new features allow users to pay for goods, taxes, services, and connect with computers, videos and etc in an easier way. For example, translation of WeChat Moments posts, fast sending photos while in chat, and importing chat history to new photos. In China, almost 330 million people on average use WeChat every month, of which WeChat Official Account users have taken up 79.3%. With the development of mobile internet and convenient mobile equipment, users spend more time on WeChat surfing or communicating. Advertisers could seize this opportunity to popularize their products.

Automotive advertising is active on the platform of WeChat. Recently, many automobile advertisements have appeared on WeChat, users’ comments and sharing could help them reach more users. WeChat Traffic, an official acount of WeChat, which can provide instant search of road traffic, vehicle violation inquiry, traffic cameras and so on, has become a typical platform for automotive advertising. Here are some comparisons between WeChat Traffic and other automotive information applications.

WeChat Traffic and other Official Accounts have accumulated a large number of car owners who want to change or buy a new car.

Nearly 80% car owners pre-order car insurance through WeChat Traffic, far more than other accounts or apps. Nearly 70% of WeChat traffic users are male, and 93% of them are 25 years old or above. High education users make up of 78%, higher than others.

With new development and improvement in WeChat, more users would be attracted to WeChat and official accounts, which could be a good opportunity for advertisers.

Read more: How WeChat Drives Viral Marketing of Local Specialities

According to a report by the Chinese online tourism website (tao.117go.com), as high as 61% of Chinese tourists have ordered air tickets and hotels in advance for over 10 days tour, by combining Mid-autumn Festival and Chinese National Day holiday together.

This year, only three-day working days will remain after Mid-Autumn Festival, followed by Chinese National Day. Many people applied for several days off to enjoy a long holiday. Then, Oversea travel destinations become their top choices.

Among free and easy trip travelers, the top 10 are Tokyo, Taipei, Osaka, Kaohsiung, Hualien, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul and Kenting. It is worth mentioning that Los Angeles is becoming a hot new destination for Chinese tourists going on free and easy trips, and it is the only destination out of the Asia Pacific region. Besides, South Korea has gained a strong recovery and returned to the list.

Free and easy tour travelers are more inclined to focus on leisure and relaxation compared with the traditional travelers traveling in groups. 90% purchase are for entertainment.

And compared with summer holiday, the ratio of office workers traveling during the National Day is increasing that recreational features become more significant. The tickets order of hottest attraction during the summer holiday has decreased from 38% to 28% this October. In the mean time, orders of recreational goods and transportation card tickets account for respectively 5 percentage points and 3 percentage points increase.

Family tourism is a prominent feature of Chinese free tour travelers. More than 74% of orders came from families with three or more members. And it is also timely to promote the development of outbound chartered vehicle business; such orders have increased by more than 100% compared with the same period last year.

Also read: China to invest $278.7 Billion in Tourism in 2025

In recent years, with the penetration of online travel applications and improvement of people’s living standard, more and more people chose to travel on holidays. The total number of outbound and inbound tourists in China increased by 9.8% to 127 million in H1 2015 according to Mafengwo.cn.

Payment Method

Based on the research by Mafengwo, an online travel company, 43.2% of Chinese travelers preferred payment in advance while 56.8% preferred to pay at the hotel reception, considering the possible changes during travel and security problems of electronic payment.

Selection of Hotels

In the first half of 2015, Chinese tourists in general would choose a hotel after browsing 14 hotels at weekdays, more than 11 in 2014; and on weekends they would on average browse 18 hotels before selecting their favorite hotels, more than 13 in 2014. Apart from price and reviews, hotel style and comprehensive condition were core factors that would influence final decisions.

Pre-booking Days

Chinese domestic travelers on average booked hotels 12 days in advance, and booked outbound hotels 42 days before the trips, respectively an increase of 2 days and 5 days compared with 2014. PC users would reserve hotels earlier than uses in mobile end. PC orders would be made with an average of 32 days in advance, and the mobile orders with an average of 15 days in advance.

Refund Rate

72.02% of the hotel reservation cancelation were done by the female users, and only 27.98% by the male users.

Taiwan BnB

BnB (bed and breakfast) was one of the attractions of Taiwan. Taipei, with only 15.95% of total bookings in Taiwan, accounted for 63.96% BnB booking market. To attract more mainland tourists and increase the order of BnB, Taiwan needed to integrate resources further and strengthen the publicity and promotion.

Hot 5 Star Hotel Reservation Cities

In H1 2015, the top three cities that citizens preferred booking 5 star hotels were Hangzhou (a YoY increase of 287.67%), Fuzhou (226.67%), and Kunming (200%).

Hot Online Reservation Cities

Beijing was China’s most developed online hotel reservations city with one out of four booking hotels online. The top five cities that citizens preferred online booking were Beijing (23.96%), Shanghai (20.86%), Guangzhou (14.56%), Nanjing (7.51%), and Hangzhou (6.95%).

Hot 5 Star Hotels

The top 5 star hotels that Chinese tourists favored most were Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore, Pai Island Resort and Racha Hotel in Thailand, L’Hotel Nina et Convention Centre in Hongkong, and AYANA Resort and Spa in Indonesia.

Also read: China Travel Market to Reach $617.4B in 2015

The year 2015 sees Australia’s most popular tourism market since 2000 when the Olympics was held in Sydney. 91 million Australian dollars (US$62.79 million) was spent every day in Australia by international tourists, where Chinese tourists contributed 19 million Australian dollars (US$13.11 million).

Since late last year, the Australian dollar dropped further after experiencing a slight rebound last month. The exchange rate of the Australian dollar against RMB continued to weaken this year although several intermediate rises. As of September 2 2015, the Australian dollar against RMB had fallen by about 10%.

Influenced by the devaluation of the Australia dollars, Chinese outbound tourists to Australia increased. Among the international tourists visiting Australia, China accounted for about one-fifth, which was meant to bring Australia US$4.83 billion every year.

According to data of Australian tourism, the total expenditure of international tourists in Australia increased by 10% to US$23.04 billion, US$2.21 billion growth compared with last year. The number of Chinese tourists traveling to Australia increased by 22% to 864,000 person-trips compared with last year with the total consumption increase of 32%. Besides, Chinese travelers’ travel expenditure accounted for 6% of Australian GDP.

Also read: China the Largest Inbound Tourism Market for Japan H1 2015

By 2025, China’s investment in tourism will amount to US$278.7 billion, taking over the US as the world’s largest tourism country according to WTTC. In the following 10 years, the growth rate of the tourism industry will continue higher growth than the macro-economy. The tourism industry is expected to offer 72.9 million new jobs.

Although China’s economic growth slows down, China in the global tourism market gains an increasingly larger share. According to data of the World Travel and Tourism Council, annual growth rate of China tourism GDP a is 3.8%, slightly lower than the previous year’s estimation of 4.1%. Many factors can explain why China will be difficult to maintain high growth rates, including the gradual loss of the demographic dividend, decline of return on investment (ROI) year by year, unfavorable external environment, slowing productivity growth , transformation of the economic structure and others.

By 2025, China’s investment in tourism will reach US$278.7 billion, taking over the US as the world’s largest tourism country. However, the total tourism GDP contribution, inbound and outbound tourism consumption rank after the United States. The contribution of the tourism industry in China’s GDP will increase from 9.8% 2014 to 10.5% 2025 and tourism employment in the total employment rises from 9.4% 2014 to 10.7% 2015, mainly due to strong growth demand in the emerging market and a growing consumption trend in tourism, in addition, the support of the government and the companies to meet the large demand of tourism infrastructure and talents.

By 2025, China will surpass Spain and France to be the second largest country by tourism revenue, following the U.S., and the largest tourism spending country, followed by America, German and the United States.

Also read: China the Largest Inbound Tourism Market for Japan H1 2015

The effective usage time of vertical finance websites in China totaled 280 million hours in July 2015.

In July 2015, the average daily user reach of Eastmoney.com reached 21.35 million, with a penetration rate of 8.1%, ranking first in China finance websites; Ce.cn ranked second with a daily reach of 2.6% or 6.69 million; and 10jqka.com.cn  followed, with daily reach of 2.3% to 6.13 million.

The effective monthly usage time of vertical finance websites was 280 million hours. Monthly usage of Eastmoney.com ranked first, 80 million hours, followed by 10jqka.com.cn (23.72 million hours) and Yicai.com (14.11 million hours).

Also read: Top 10 China’s Fashion Websites in July 2015

In July 2015, the average daily reach of China’s vertical IT websites reached 30.13 million users. The average daily reach of Zol.com.cn reached 491 million, ranking first in China’s vertical websites on IT, followed by Pconline.com.cn (3.18 million) and Csdn.net (2.69 million).

In July 2015, the effective usage time of China’s vertical IT website totaled to 71,986,000 hours. The top three IT websites with the longest usage time were Zol.com.cn (10,070,000 hours), Pconline.com.cn (6.57 million hours), and cnBeta.net (5.52 million hours).

Also read: Top 10 China’s Fashion Websites in July 2015

About 2 million Chinese visited France last year, and the number was expected to reach 5 million in recent years. Chinese tourists increased by 50% on a year-on-year base in Q1 2015.

In 2014, over 100 million Chinese travelled abroad. Japan, South Korea, the United States and some European countries were popular tourism destinations.

Chinese tourists had made great contributions in French tourism, and become the second largest inbound country of France. The first was the European market. Because of the devaluation of the currency and economic crisis, Russian, Japanese, the Netherlands and German tourists to France dropped. Due to the growth of Chinese tourists, the number of foreign visitors in France could maintain the growth last year.

Chinese outbound tourism to France is still in the developing stage. China would become France’s largest source of tourists in the next few years with an annual visit about 5 million person-trips as expected.

Also read: China the Largest Inbound Tourism Market for Japan H1 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 June 2015, the consumer electronics brands spent 71.78 million yuan (US$11.21 million) on online advertising . Nikon spent 7.4 million yuan ranking first, followed by Haier (US$1.04 million) and Midea (US$1.01 million) according to iResearch.

In June 2015, the consumer electronics advertising spends were mainly on web portals, online video websites and news websites. Spends on web portals amounted to 23.85 million yuan (US$3.72 million), 33.2% of the total online advertising spends; online video website spent 12.49 million yuan (US$1.95 million), 17.4% of the total spends; news website put 7.1 million yuan (US$1.11 million), 9.9% of the total expenditure.

Also read: China Advertising Insights 2015

In 2015, when the total usage of digital media users outpaced that of traditional media, the social media also showed their own unique development properties and characteristics in China.

Businesses of all sizes and levels in China are committed to test and realize the value of their social media marketing. Entrepreneurs expect to improve their brand awareness, and increase website traffic and audience reach to obtain more customers.

Companies were expected to measure ROI (return on investment), tie social activities to business outcomes, develop social media strategy, which were challenging to achieve through their social media programs.

Influence of social media activity was difficult to quantify. Marketers in China fall easily into simply referring to the number of followers, likes and reposts as the only measurement for the success of their China social media campaigns. Engagement (likes, shares, etc.), audiences (followers, fans, etc.), website traffic, leads and other metrics were several major metrics to measure the success of social media programs.

The average number of tools to analyze and report on social media activities had relations with the scale and years of experience of the companies. Some Chinese companies remained satisfied with the data they collected while many companies were unsatisfied with the lack of useful tools.

Although social media enjoyed a large quantity of daily average users, most social media marketing have not been integrated into the enterprise objective. Among all the respondents surveyed by TrustRadius, only about 50% agreed that social media data and analytics would impact the social media marketing strategy, and even less than 25% respondents agreed that the social media data and analytics would impact the companies’ overall business strategy.

Also read: China Advertising Insights 2015

More and more overseas e-commerce websites providing the service of direct shipping to China appear. On the one hand, they can rapidly occupy the position in the Chinese market. On the other hand, they make customers enjoy more convenient shopping.

In the U.S., many large merchants that sell products covering general goods, fashion clothes, products for infant & mom and luxury enter the Chinese market in succession, and raise the tide of directly shipping to China. Let’s take a look at a list of foreign e-commerce websites that provide the cross-border shopping to online users in China.

Amazon

Amazon, founded in America in 1995 by Jeff Bezos, is a comprehensive e-commerce brand. It provides customers with the products such as books, music, movies, digital mobile phones, home appliances, home furnishing, toys, health, cosmetics, watches and jewelries, costumes and bags and suitcases, sports, food, products for infant & mom, outdoors and leisure products. Amazon also launches the products such as Kindle series, Fire TV and FirePhone. In addition, it provides the service of directly shipping to foreign countries from Germany, Japan, France, Britain and etc.

GMarket

Gmarket is the largest comprehensive shopping website in Korea. In Korea, it ranks first in gross sales in online retail market, and mainly sells books, MP3, cosmetics, computers, home appliances, and clothes and so on.

Sasa.com

It is the well-known Asian retailer from Hong Kong who sells skin care, makeup, perfume, cosmetics, body care and health care products and covers more than 100 world-renowned beauty brands.

imoda.com

It is the first Chinese language website that has provided direct shipping to China. All goods are directly mailed to Chinese customers by the overseas top buyer shop via Fedex and DHL, and arrive at the destination within 4~8 days. It only sells fashion goods, mainly including the first and second-line international brand clothes, shoes and bags; but it can provide the prices that can be greatly cheaper than those of the products in domestic shops.

ASOS

ASOS, founded in 2000, is a global online retailer providing fashion costumes and beauty products. ASOS owns brand from London designers and the world’s third-party brand provide fashion goods for young people.

Ashford

Ashford, founded in 1997, is headquartered in Broolyn, New York, America. It is a special top online mall providing fashion jewelries and fashion watches. It is one of the largest online watch vendors in America, and well known for low discounts and variety. In Ashford, you can find out the Swiss watch, the Japanese watch, and the American watch and high-end brand watches such as Mido, Hamilton, and Casio and so on.

Puritan’s Pride

Puritan’s Pride Healthy Food Company, founded in Long Island, New York, America in 1960, has 51-year-old history so far. It is one of the largest and most complete healthy product companies. It specializes in developing, producing and selling vitamins, minerals, herbs and healthy food related to health, beauty and weight lose and so on, and provides more than 1000 kinds of nutrition.

Puritan’s Pride has more than 6 million satisfied customers. People prefer to buy its healthy product due to its high quality and affordable price. Hot products include L-carnitine anti-aging series, apple acetic acid weight loss series, and disodium phosphate anticancer series and so on.

Macys.com

Macys.com, attached to the U.S. Federated Department Stores, Inc, is a high-end department store in America. It wins the good reputation due to high-quality products and service. Macys is called the world’s largest department store by many customers, and mainly sells various men’s and women’s clothing, children’s clothing, shoes, bags, beauty makeup, jewelries, household appliances, watch and its accessories and so on.

SkinStore

SkinStore is a top international cosmetics online shopping mall. SkinStore’s products mainly refer to beauty care, beautiful makeup, shampoo and hair care, bath, products for infant & mom, perfume and so on. It also provides service directly mailing to China without transport!

GiltGroupe

GiltGroupe luxury shopping website is a creative online shopping website, opens up the “flash purchase” in America; it provides the customers from all over the world with various popular products, most of which are sold with the internal price, as low as 60% off. Every day GiltGroupe provides members with various well-known brand products, which mainly includes women’s wear, men’s clothing, children’s clothes, household products and so on.

Allyouneed

Allyouneed is a famous comprehensive B2C website in Germany, and provides the products such as beverages, daily chemicals for infant & mom, domestic products for pets, household electronics, and even fresh fruits and vegetables, especially, momand papa who focus on overseas shopping can buy the hot Aptamil, Hipp, and Holle on this website. Moreover, they also can use coupons, and no other website can compare with this website.

LuisaViaRoma

LuisaViaRoma is the top luxury fashionable boutique brand shop in Italy. Its physical flagship store has been located in Rome Road, in the center of Florence since its foundation in 1930. LuisaViaRoma.com (LVR.com), founded in 1999, is its official online shopping mall and one of the luxury shopping websites of doing online fashion trade at the earliest.

SSense

Ssense is a Canadian website, and mainly sells costumes. It provides boutique costumes such as D&G, JuicyCouture, MissSixty, G-Star and Diesel, which are not luxury costumes and its pricing can be quite acceptable.

PayEasy

PayEasy is the largest female shopping website, and it has the commodities including beauty care, make-up, bags, accessories, fashionable costumes, digital 3C, and home furnishings and so on.

Continue to read Chinese Cross-border Online Shoppers Insights

Over 50% China tourists prefer to book travel products and services on mobile apps, according to a survey conducted by Ctrip.

93% respondents in Ctrip survey showed travel intention in 2015 and only 7% has no intention to travel at all in 2015. Nearly all respondents over 45 years old would like to travel.

Chinese tourists are spending more on their trips. 34% respondents in Ctrip survey plan to spend between 5,001 and 10,000 yuan; 34% with a budget of over 10,000 yuan per trip.

52% prefer to purchase their travel products and services on mobile apps for convenience and plenty of promotions. Only 18% visit travel agency stores.

Read more here.

Double 11 (11 Nov) are not the only online sales promotions in China. Mid-year promotion is also an important campaign for China’s e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and Jingdong.

This year, Tmall brings 300,000 products from 25 countries to Chinese consumers during the promotion. Participating retailers include eight multinational supermarkets and hypermarkets including Costco from U.S., Inferno from Germany, and King Power from Thailand.

Brands without a present in China, who have Tmall Global store, can also join the promotion if selected. Overall, more than 20,000 merchants were selected by Tmall to participate in the mid-year promotion.

Also read: China Female Online Shopper Insights 2015

Weibo monthly active users were 198 million in March 2015, up 38% YoY according to Weibo’s financial results for Q1 2015.

Weibo’s mobile MAU was 86% of total MAU in March. Daily active users were 89 million on average in March 2015, up 34% YoY.

Weibo’s net revenues increased 43% YoY to $96.3 million in Q1 2015. Over 82% revenues came from Weibo advertising and marketing ($79.2 million). Net loss for Q1 2015 was $2.8 million, compared to a net loss of $47.4 million in Q1 2014.

Weibo Q4 2014 net revenues increased 47% year over year to $105.2 million, 83.8% from advertising and marketing ($88 million).

Read more: Weibo Smartphone User Insights in 2014