Teenagers and over 50s lead the increase in China’s internet users bringing the total to 1.1 billion.
China has 1.1 billion internet users according to a new report, with the majority of new users being teenagers and older people.
The number of Chinese internet users grew by 7.42 million people between January and June 2024. This brings the total number of internet users to 1.09967 billion. Equivalent to 78% of China’s population.
Internet users in China are often referred to in Chinese as Wangmin (网民), typically translated as Netizens.
China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), a government-affiliated research institute, released the report. Since 1997 they have been releasing reports on China’s internet usage and situation.
They released the report on August 29th and covers data from the first half of 2024.
Digging into the numbers, the data shows that most new users were older or younger people. In total young people accounted for 49.0% of the new netizens. Meanwhile, those aged 50-59 and 60+ accounted for 15.2% and 20.8% respectively.
The majority of new joiners were due to interest in short videos.
Almost 40% of people joined to use a short video application like Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, and its rival KuaiShou.
A further 12.6% joined to use a messaging app like WeChat.
Short videos are big business in China. The newest report says over 95% of people in China – more than 1 billion – use a short video platform.
Amongst short videos, ultrashort dramas have proven to be a big hit in recent years.
The filmmakers shoot them to be watched in a vertical format like on smartphones, and each episode lasts only a couple of minutes. The industry in China is already worth billions of dollars.
The CNNIC report showed that more than 52% of Chinese internet users had watched an ultrashort drama so far in 2024.
This is only slightly lower than the 65% who had watched long-form video content.
Liu Yulin, a director at CCNIC, said: “Short video applications demonstrate a powerful ability to attract new users, which is due to their convenience, rich content, and personalized recommendation algorithms,” according to Sixth Tone.
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