On January 11, QuestMobile, a domestic third-party data agency, released the "Revelation of China's Mobile Internet Development (I)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Development Revelation"), comprehensively taking stock of the main characteristics of China's Internet development in the past two years. According to QuestMobile data, the scale of mobile Internet users in China tends to stabilize, with the total size of Internet users reaching 1.167 billion as of September 2021, an increase of only 14 million year-on-year.
Entering the stock era, the intensity of netizens' use of mobile phones is still increasing, and more offline scenes have become the main theme of Internet development, at the same time, based on years of Internet development accumulation, BATT (Baidu, Ali, Tencent, Byte) four enterprises control the traffic entrance is very obvious. With the sinking market with nearly 700 million users, how to tap this huge market has become a mandatory test for Internet companies to continue to develop.
Head players occupy the core traffic
With the increase in the penetration rate of mobile Internet, the growth rate of mobile Internet users has slowed down steadily, and it has begun to face a total population ceiling. According to QuestMobile data, as of September 2021, the total number of mobile Internet users was 1.167 billion, compared with 1.153 billion in September 2020, an increase of only 14 million year-on-year.
But people's dependence on the mobile Internet has steadily deepened. As of September 2021, the average monthly single-day use time of mobile Internet users reached 6.6 hours, an increase of 8.2% year-on-year, and the number of monthly per capita single-day use reached 115.1, an increase of 3.1% year-on-year, and the Internet further penetrated into people's daily lives.
It is worth noting that the BATT Big Four are significantly ahead in the number of apps and the coverage of netizens. According to QuestMobile data, as of September 2021, tencent holdings has 436 apps associated with it, with an active penetration rate of 94.7%, and the traffic of mobile Internet enterprises has reached 1.105 billion, ranking first in the country. Alibaba followed suit, with 115 apps associated with it, an active penetration rate of 90%, and a mobile Internet enterprise traffic of 1.05 billion. Baidu Group and ByteDance have 103 and 99 associated apps respectively, ranking third and fourth in mobile Internet enterprise traffic, respectively.
The strong hengqiang, the mobile Internet presents the phenomenon of traffic pool differentiation. QuestMobile believes that after the main entrance scene of the mobile Internet is controlled by the giant, the traffic continues to concentrate on the head, and the giant can quickly penetrate into various vertical fields through the population scene to improve the layout, which further leads to the squeezing of the development space of the middle and tail enterprises and the increase in the difficulty of user acquisition. "However, driven by policy orientation and user demand, the mobile Internet will usher in a new market environment of openness and interoperability."
Netizens in the sinking market account for half of the whole network
The high popularity of the Internet has also caused the same changes in the structure of netizens as the demographic structure. According to the "Development Apocalypse", as of September 2021, the number and proportion of users across the network have shown a younger and older characteristic, and both the number and proportion have been increasing. From the perspective of urban grade distribution, the proportion of netizens in new first-tier, second-tier and third-tier cities is increasing, and third-tier cities with stronger comprehensive economic strength are the most important living forces in the sinking market.
In the face of the pandemic, the lifestyle of netizens in the sinking market has been forced to change due to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, with the number of monthly active users peaking at 730 million in March 2020 and remaining at around 692 million in September 2021. How to serve the huge number of users in the sinking market has become an important strategy that must be considered in the sustainable development of Internet enterprises.
QuestMobile data shows that overall, the demand for Online behavior of the sinking market population is low, and the form of mobile video, especially short video, is more favorable, and the active penetration rate is as high as 82.3%, second only to the two major scenes of instant messaging and mobile shopping. In addition, the active penetration rate of map navigation, payment settlement, and online video is also significantly higher than that of comprehensive information, mobile music, and financial management.
"Compared with the users of the whole network, the users of the sinking market have higher life satisfaction." QuestMobile believes that optimizing the price sensitivity of users in the sinking market, offline habit migration and other characteristics is the main means to successfully step into the sinking market. "Cost-effectiveness is still the mainstream for a long time, but it is also necessary to pay attention to the quality of word-of-mouth." Application operation should also be simple and easy to understand, and the interface should be friendly. ”
It is worth mentioning that due to the dual impact of the aging of the population and the high popularity of the Internet, the proportion of elderly users in all netizens has increased rapidly. As of September 2021, the number of monthly active users of the silver-haired population over the age of 50 has reached 247 million, an increase of 19.3% year-on-year, and the "silver-haired economy" brought by it cannot be underestimated.
The penetration rate of the smart device industry is increasing year by year
Under the continuous education of the market, the smart device industry has maintained a rapid growth trend in recent years. QuestMobile data shows that after breaking through the 200 million mark for the first time in 2021, the monthly active users of the smart device industry have exceeded 250 million as of September 2021, an increase of 26.4% year-on-year. Especially in March 2021, the scale of monthly active users in the smart device industry increased significantly, with a year-on-year increase of 70.6%.
Smart home and smart automotive industry are the main growth engines of the smart device industry. Smart homes appeared earlier, but as the main component of the smart device industry, it is still growing at a high speed. As of September 2021, the number of users on the network reached 178 million, an increase of 52.8% year-on-year. With the continuous improvement of the Internet of Vehicles technology, the intelligent automotive industry has also ushered in rapid development, with 19.28 million users in the whole network, with a year-on-year growth rate of 83.0%.
Benefiting from the increase in communication network bandwidth and the decline in energy consumption, people's access to the Internet is also becoming more and more abundant. QuestMobile believes that with the maturity of 5G, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 8K ultra-high definition, Internet of Things, AR/VR and other technologies, people's lives will break through the limitations of single screens of mobile phones in the future, and realize the "two-dimensional flat" service with mobile phones as the core gradually step into the "three-dimensional scenario" service built by a variety of intelligent terminals, and the application service will appear "dimensionally broken" development.
Large companies are also increasing their use of emerging technologies in search of innovation opportunities. QuestMobile said the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated business exploration and interest in emerging technologies for real-time collaboration. "We expect highly resilient technologies such as teamwork tools, Wi-Fi 6, edge computing, AI IT operations platforms, and distributed systems to become important strategic technology trends in 2022."
Image credit: QuestMobile