In April 2010, CNNIC released their report on Chinese rural Internet development in 2009. For the most part, it’s a comparison of urban and rural internet usage in China. Here are a few of the insights that you might find interesting.
By the end of 2009, the number of rural Chinese Internet users had reached 107 million, which is a 26% increase since last year. The number of rural mobile Internet users increased by 79% to 72 million. Two-thirds of rural Chinese Internet users access the Internet via mobile devices.
NUMBER OF INTERNET USERS IN CHINA
While the Internet penetration rate is 45% in urban areas, it is only 15% in rural China. This discrepancy continues to increase. In 2007 there was only a 20% difference in urban and rural Internet usage, but that grew to 24% in 2008 and 30% in 2009. The three greatest causes of this are:
- Rural citizens are less knowledgeable about the Internet.
- A lack of Internet infrastructure in rural areas.
- High expense relative to rural income levels.
INTERNET PENETRATION RATE IN CHINA
INCOME LEVELS OF CHINESE INTERNET USERS
User Characteristics
Rural Internet users are comparatively younger and less educated. A higher proportion of them is students. The proportion of female Internet users is only 42% in rural China, while it is 47% in urban China.
Usage of business applications is much lower in rural areas. Usage rates for online shopping and online payment applications for urban Internet users: 32%, 28%; for rural Internet users: 18%, 15%. Both urban and rural users show similar usage rates for online entertainment and video games.
EDUCATION LEVELS OF CHINESE INTERNET USERS
AGE DISTRIBUTION OF CHINESE INTERNET USERS
Internet Usage
While urban Chinese users spend an average of 19.7 hours online per week, rural users spend an average of 16 hours. Some of this is due to lower usage by rural students, who account for 32% of total rural users.
Rural internet usage is lower for all purposes except for online gaming, which actually has a rural usage rate 1.3% higher than the urban rate. In general, the usage rates for entertainment are rather close.
|
Category
|
Purpose
|
Urban
Usage Rate |
Rural
Usage Rate |
Difference
Between Urban and Rural Usage Rates |
Annual
Increase in Rural Usage |
Annual
Increase in Urban Usage |
|
Business
|
Stock Trading
|
16.9%
|
8.5%
|
-8.4%
|
153.7%
|
54.8%
|
|
Business
|
Banking
|
27.7%
|
15.2%
|
-12.5%
|
103.2%
|
55.1%
|
|
Business
|
Online Payment
|
27.7%
|
15.1%
|
-12.6%
|
101.7%
|
72.3%
|
|
Business
|
Travel Booking
|
9.4%
|
3.3%
|
-6.1%
|
60.2%
|
80.2%
|
|
Communication
|
Forums
|
32.9%
|
23.3%
|
-9.6%
|
48.0%
|
21.9%
|
|
Entertainment
|
Gaming
|
68.6%
|
69.9%
|
1.3%
|
47.5%
|
39.4%
|
|
Communication
|
Blogging
|
58.4%
|
55.5%
|
-2.9%
|
45.1%
|
33.8%
|
|
Business
|
Shopping
|
31.7%
|
17.6%
|
-14.1%
|
44.7%
|
44.6%
|
|
Information Gathering
|
Search Engines
|
75.9%
|
66.5%
|
-9.4%
|
43.3%
|
37.5%
|
|
Information
|
News
|
82.8%
|
72.4%
|
-10.3%
|
33.2%
|
30.6%
|
|
Entertainment
|
Music
|
83.8%
|
82.7%
|
-1%
|
29.2%
|
28.4%
|
|
Communication
|
Email
|
61.0%
|
44.6%
|
-16.4%
|
25.1%
|
28.7%
|
|
Communication
|
Instant Messaging
|
71.9%
|
68.2%
|
-3.7%
|
21.3%
|
21.2%
|
|
Entertainment
|
Video
|
64.5%
|
57.3%
|
-7.2%
|
19.9%
|
18.6%
|
|
Communication
|
SNS
|
14.2%
|
12.1%
|
-2.1%
|
—
|
—
|
|
Entertainment
|
网络文学
|
42.7%
|
41.2%
|
-1.6%
|
—
|
—
|
There are now 70 million rural Chinese search engine users, an increase of 43% over the previous year. Two-thirds of rural Internet users use search engines. This is still 9% below the search engine usage rate in urban China.
Interestingly, as usage of traditional forums has declined in the past year in urban China, it is still increasing in rural China. (It went from 35% to 33% in urban China and from 20% to 23% in rural China.) Of course, the total number of forum users increased, but the percentage of urban Chinese Internet users that use forums decreased. This is due to the rise of social networking websites, which CNNIC measured for the first time in 2009. I expect huge growth rates for SNS usage in upcoming reports.
Lack of infrastructure for shipping goods and limited online payment options have caused a bottleneck for the growth of e-commerce in rural China. Rural citizens’ lack of understanding of the Internet, feelings that the online transactions are unsafe and lack of trust for online vendors have further limited the growth of e-commerce. While rural usage rates of online shopping, banking and payments have increased considerably, they are still almost twice as low as those of urban China.
The number of rural users that access the Internet at Internet cafes has decreased from 45 million to 44 million, while those that access the Internet from home increased from 58 million to 80 million. This follows a similar trend seen in China.
DEVICES USED TO ACCESS THE INTERNET IN CHINA
At 67%, the proportion of rural Chinese Internet users that access the Internet via mobile phones, is higher than that of urban users, of whom only 58% access via a mobile phone. However, given the much larger number of urban Internet users, the total number of rural Internet users is still much lower – 160 million urban users to 78 million rural users. 76% of Chinese rural mobile Internet users are under the age of 30.