China leads world in internet market

China pioneers the world in internet development, as the growth of its netizen population and the amount of internet consumption both top the corresponding rate in other nations, a newly released industry report said.

The compound growth rate of Chinese netizens reached 25 percent in the past 15 years and ranks the first globally while China's internet consumption has grown at a compound rate of 32 percent in the past five years, which is also ahead of most countries in the world.

The report, published by global management consultancy the Boston Consulting Group as well as a group of internet giants such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Baidu Inc and Didi Chuxing, reveals the latest trend of China's internet economy.

"We found that many new applications permeate much quicker in China than the US as Chinese netizens are more willing to accept new applications," said Li Shu, a partner at Boston Consulting.

"For example, Chinese transportation platform Didi Chuxing took three years to get half of China's ride-sharing market penetration while Uber still hasn't achieved the same goal "up til now," Li said.

Another trend the report pointed out: China's internet market is very influential in terms of scale and impact as a considerable number of internet giants, start ups and unicorns - new, non-listed companies with valuations of more than $1 billion - are competing with world magnates in the field.

Data from open database CrunchBase showed that among 221 global unicorns, Chinese firms make up for nearly one third of the total, with a valuation of around $330 billion.

Statistics from China Internet Network Information Center showed that China had a total of 751 million netizens by June 2017, which is about the total population of Europe.

China's "internet market can develop so rapidly based on such a big quantity. It is partly benefited by China's overall economic situation, since China has a large amount of young consumers and internet talents, a well-rounded capital foundation, as well as a solid base on infrastructure," Li said.

In the past few years, the State Council, Chinese cabinet, has pushed forward a series of plans to booster internet infrastructure construction, including broadband, mobile internet, iCloud and new technologies, which guarantees a sound environment for internet development.

According to the report, China's internet economy is highly active but also fluctuates greatly in top destinations of investment such as group purchases, live video streaming and peer-to-peer lending. An increasing number of enterprises has followed the trend, but the survival rate is low.

The Chinese internet market "is moving from application-driven innovation to technology-driven innovation. We believe that in the future, the large amount of users as well as abundant application scenes will help China to promote technological innovation," added Zhao Cheng, general manager of public affairs of Baidu Inc.

Contact the writers at chengyu@chinadaily.com.cn