i3 - July/August 2017 - 49

By Steve Koenig

Business

M A R K E T B E AT

Digital Lifestyles in China

hen traveling in China it won't take long before
you encounter and likely experience WeChat, Tencent
and JD.com - all services that underpin the fastmoving Chinese digital lifestyle. In the span of a decade,
China has developed and deployed a world-class online services
sector and consumers have fully embraced it. CTA's new consumer study Digital Lifestyles in China, which debuted at CES
Asia, dives into the Chinese online realm to explore consumer
behaviors in three key areas: social networks, video content
consumption and shopping preferences.
Social media is a fundamental part of
Chinese consumers' personal lives today,
but they're not using it for work. Chinese
are highly engaged - messaging (63 percent), liking (49 percent) and commenting
(42 percent) - daily or even multiple times
a day. But unlike the U.S. and other
Western countries, only 28 percent use
social media for professional purposes.
Chinese consumers believe strongly that
social media is a necessary part of society
in the 21st century. They use networks to
connect to friends, family and the world.
Because they feel the need to be constantly
connected, smartphones are the devices
preferred overwhelmingly when it comes
to social media because they're always on
hand, anytime, anywhere. WeChat leads the
pack of social networking sites with 95 percent of consumers saying they have an
account and 86 percent of users connecting
multiple times a day. WeChat is also a leading platform for mobile payments in China.

American and Chinese consumers.
Among Chinese consumers, an overwhelming preference exists for shopping
online vs. in-store. Some 61 percent of
consumers say they prefer to shop online,
compared to just 11 percent who prefer to
shop in-store.
Chinese consumers buy online frequently, typically from a smartphone, and
purchase various items, a dynamic that
closely resembles the U.S market. Sixty percent shop online once a week or more for
things such as clothing, grocery and housedifferent devices - smartphones for short
hold items, electronics, books and beauty
clips, posts from family/friends and news.
Movies do well everywhere, but particularly products. They like the ease of shopping
anywhere and anytime, the expanded
on the bigger screens of laptops and deskselection and the ability
tops. When it comes to
to compare products and
content sources, Chinese
Chinese are
prices. There are very few
consumers are generally
open to both domestic
highly engaged - things they can't (or won't)
purchase online - mainly
and foreign content, with
messaging
expensive items they need
a slight preference for
(63 percent),
see or try on.
domestic, especially for
liking (49 percent) to Even
more so than in
news. Nearly half, howand commentthe West, mastering the
ever, are looking to be
ing (42 percent) - digital and online realm in
well-informed and like
China, a country of 1.4 bilto use both foreign and
daily or even
lion people, is understanddomestic news sources.
multiple times
ably essential to reaching
Shopping is where we
a day.
and building relationships
discovered a key differwith customers.
ence in behavior between

SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Streaming Video

Like many Americans, Chinese consumers use streaming video to relax and pass
time both alone and with friends and
family. The research shows they watch content during their commute, work breaks,
after work, after dinner and while going
to bed. They describe watching videos as
calming and relaxing, whether they are
spending time with family and friends or
'decompressing' alone. Sound familiar?
Also similar to U.S. consumers,
Chinese consumers stream videos on
C TA . t e c h / i 3

JULY/AUGUST 2017

http://www.JD.com http://CTA.tech/research http://www.cta.tech

i3 - July/August 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of i3 - July/August 2017