China's Internet obsession
Posted in: Internet Use/New Technologies at 11/03/2010 00:18
[free registration required for complete article] People in the country's 60 largest cities spend 70 percent of their leisure time online. Seismic changes in the consumer market are likely as a result.
Just how big (or small) a market would Google leave behind were it to pull out of China today? In January, China Internet Network Information Center, the country's official domain registry and research organization, reported that by the end of 2009, the number of Internet users in China had touched 384 million, more than the entire population of the United States. That's an increase of around 50 percent over 2008. Moreover, 233 million Chinese -- twice as many as in the previous year -- accessed the Net on handheld devices, partly because China's cellular providers started offering 3G services widely last year.
The Chinese are obsessed with the Internet. People in the 60 largest cities in China spend around 70 percent of their leisure time on the Internet, according to a survey we conducted in 2009.
http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Digital_Marketing/Chinas_Internet_obsession_2546