Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: In the first quarter, Internet enterprises above designated size completed business revenue of 323.6 billion yuan

On April 29, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the operation of the Internet and related service industries in the first quarter of 2022, and in the first quarter, the scale of Internet business continued to expand, operating costs shrank slightly, and research and development expenses accelerated. The operation of subdivisions has shown a differentiated trend, with enterprises mainly based on information services and network sales services growing steadily and rapidly, and the growth rate of income of platform enterprises with life services declining.

First, the overall operation

The scale of Internet business revenue remained expanding. In the first quarter, Internet and related service enterprises above designated size in the mainland (hereinafter referred to as Internet enterprises) completed Internet business revenue of 323.6 billion yuan, an increase of 1.4% year-on-year.

Operating cost growth fell. In the first quarter, the operating costs of Internet enterprises above designated size in the mainland increased by 4.4% year-on-year, and the growth rate fell by 3.8 percentage points compared with January and February. A total profit of 15.45 billion yuan was realized, down 10.3% year-on-year, and the decline was 2.9 percentage points deeper than that in January and February.

R&D spending accelerated. In the first quarter, Internet enterprises above designated size in the mainland invested a total of 17.75 billion yuan in research and development funds, an increase of 8.4% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 11.2 percentage points higher than that of January and February.

Second, the operation of sub-fields

(1) Enterprises in the field of information services have grown steadily, and enterprises in the field of audio and video services have increased prominently. In the first quarter, the Internet business revenue of enterprises mainly based on information services (including news and information, search, social, games, music and video, etc.) increased by 7.1% year-on-year, which was 5.7 percentage points higher than the growth rate of the entire industry. Among them, enterprises in the field of audio and video services have developed rapidly; enterprises in the field of search services have maintained rapid growth; enterprise businesses in the field of social services have achieved rapid development; and the revenue of enterprises in the field of online games has cooled down significantly.

(2) The growth rate of enterprise income in the field of life services has declined, and the business of service platforms such as tourism and travel has shrunk significantly. In the first quarter, due to the offline consumption affected by the spread of the epidemic in Many places in China in March, the Internet business revenue of platform enterprises that mainly provide life services (including local life, car rental, tourism, financial services, automobiles, housing and housing, etc.) fell by 17.4% year-on-year. Among them, the revenue of enterprises providing car rental and ride-hailing services continued to shrink; the revenue growth rate of enterprises providing tourism travel services fell sharply.

(3) The income of enterprises in the field of online sales has grown rapidly, and the leading role of comprehensive e-commerce enterprises is obvious. In the first quarter, the Internet business revenue of enterprises that mainly provide online sales services (including bulk commodities, agricultural and sideline products, integrated e-commerce, medical supplies, express delivery, etc.) increased by 8.5% year-on-year, 7.1 percentage points higher than the growth rate of the entire industry. Among them, the business income of integrated e-commerce enterprises has grown rapidly; the business income of enterprises providing bulk commodity sales services has dropped sharply.

Third, the operation of the sub-region

Internet business revenue is regionally differentiated. In the first quarter, the eastern region completed Internet business revenue of 295.9 billion yuan, an increase of 2.3% year-on-year, 0.9 percentage points higher than the national growth rate, accounting for 91.4% of the national Internet business revenue. The revenue of Internet business in the western region was 16.16 billion yuan, an increase of 2.1% year-on-year, 0.7 percentage points higher than the national growth rate. The central region completed Internet business revenue of 10.37 billion yuan, down 17% year-on-year. The revenue of Internet business in the northeast region was 1.16 billion yuan, down 7.7% year-on-year.

The development of major provinces is obviously different. In the first quarter, Beijing (up 9.3%), Guangdong (up 0.2%), Shanghai (up 6.8%), Zhejiang (up 2.6%) and Tianjin (down 27.2%) in terms of cumulative Internet business revenue totaled 277.9 billion yuan, up 2.8% year-on-year, accounting for 85.9% of the country. There are 19 provinces and cities in the country where the growth rate of Internet business revenue has achieved positive growth, of which Hubei, Guizhou and Tibet have increased by more than 50%, and Hainan and Yunnan have dropped by more than 40%.

Fourth, the development of mobile applications (APP) in the mainland

The total number of mobile applications (APPS) declined slightly. As of the end of March, the number of apps monitored in the mainland domestic market was 2.3 million, a net decrease of 50,000 in the month of March. Among them, the number of local third-party app store apps is 990,000, and the number of Apple Store (China) apps is 1.31 million. In March, 70,000 new apps were added to the shelves, and 120,000 applications were removed.

Game apps stay ahead of the curve. As of the end of March, the number of apps in the top four types of mobile applications accounted for 63.1%, and 10 types of apps such as other social communications, office learning, and theme wallpapers accounted for 36.9%. Among them, the number of game APPS is leading, reaching 688,000, accounting for 29.9% of all APPS. The number of daily tools, e-commerce and life service apps reached 343,000, 227,000 and 195,000 respectively, ranking second, third and fourth in the scale of mobile applications.

Games, daily tools, video playback, and social communication applications are among the most downloaded. As of the end of March, the total number of online app distributions in mainland third-party app stores reached 2,069.6 billion times. Among them, the number of downloads of mobile apps for games ranked first, with 326.1 billion downloads, and the number of daily tools, video and audio playback, and social communications ranked second to fourth, reaching 270.9 billion, 2491 and 242.4 billion times, respectively. Among the remaining applications, the total number of downloads exceeded 100 billion times, including life services (193.3 billion times), information reading (157.1 billion times), system tools (156.9 billion times), and e-commerce (138.4 billion times).

The number of mobile app developers on the mainland exceeds one million. As of the end of March, the number of mobile app developers monitored in the mainland domestic market was 1.015 million, of which 289,000 were enterprise developers and 725,000 were team (individual) developers. The number of mobile app developers in the game category ranked first, reaching 245,000, and the number of mobile app developers in the daily tools, social communications and life services categories ranked second to fourth, with 213,000, 128,000 and 94,000 respectively. (End)