Chinese online gaming market in the first quarter of 2018 was worth 64.33 billion yuan, with a growth of 10.3 percent. After an exceptionally successful 2017, market growth slowed, partly as a result of the government’s policy to tighten the Chinese gaming market. Thanks to the rising disposable income per capita and the well-developed online payment methods, however, players are still expected to spend more and more time and money on online games in China. Market turnover is expected to grow by at least another five years.

The share of mobile gaming in the Chinese market for online video games has grown and reached 66 percent in the first quarter of 2018. This shift is likely to stabilize in the near future. At the beginning of 2018, China’s online giant Tencent more than half of the mobile gaming market in the country, followed by internet technology company Netease according to iResearch. The second-tier companies jointly accounted for about 30 percent of the market and had to face fierce competition in Q1 2018. Here is the graph from Statista.

More data on Chinese online gaming market:

The post Tencent Is The King of Chinese Online Gaming Market first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Tencent Is The King of Chinese Online Gaming Market appeared first on Sampi.co.

Communication, browsing mobile internet, listening to music and watching videos are the most common activities of Chinese mobile users. Not surprisingly, companies who traditionally dominated those niches on the internet have also been the leading providers on mobile.

Interestingly enough, not only that there isn’t a single non-Chinese app in the top 10 list, they don’t even make the first 50. In fact, the only foreign app that enjoys some popularity in China is Google’s mobile Chrome browser.

Top 10 Mobile Apps in China

#1: WeChat

Having been installed with almost every Chinese smartphone, WeChat is the undisputed leader of mobile apps in China. WeChat user base has recently passed 700 million and continues growing. Tencent, WeChat developer, is one of the most innovative Chinese tech firms and is part of the so called BAT – the acronym for Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.

#2: QQ

QQ is another hugely popular messaging app that has been the flagship Tencent product before WeChat. In fact, it is still the most popular communication tool on desktops and, is, perhaps, the most well known Chinese internet brand. Overall, its migration to mobile has been largely successful as offers a simple alternative to WeChat, although most people still use both. In fact, you are unlikely to meet a Chinese person below 50 who doesn’t have a QQ number.

#3: Mobile Baidu

While Baidu holds “only” about 60% of desktop search market in China, it completely dominates mobile with about 90% market share. Baidu mobile app is the third most used mobile app in China. It is also well designed, very fast, and accepts multiple input modes. Baidu is another part of BAT mentioned earlier.

#4: Taobao

When Chinese are not chatting or searching mobile net, they are shopping. Browsing Taobao app, is one of the most favorite pastimes for millions of people and it is often highly addictive. It is not uncommon to notice people shopping on their phone with Taobao app while eating, riding a subway or even driving…

#5: UC Browser

UC Browser is a mobile browser developed by Chinese mobile Internet company UCWeb. UC Browser claimed to have reached 500 million users in March 2014 majority of which were in China. It is still the most popular mobile browser here despite 2015 leaks linked to whistleblower Edward Snowden revealing some serious security weak points of UC Browser.

#6: QQ Browser

QQ Browser is the second most popular mobile browser across all mobile platforms. Tencent, has been leveraging their browser app installation using their other popular platforms mentioned earlier.

#7: Tencent Video

Watching videos is another most popular activity of Chinese mobile users and QQ video has been their platform of choice. Tencent video app has recently surpassed YouKu, the most popular Chinese video platform, in terms of mobile market share. Most commonly, it is used for watching TV soap operas and TV game shows while on the go.

#8: Sogou Mobile Input

Initially released in 2006, Sogou Pinyin is the most popular Chinese input software. It makes use of its search engine techniques which are the analysis and categorization of the most popular words or phrases on the Internet. Its mobile app version can be used with both Android and iOS devices offering dozens of colorful keyboards with hundreds of popular emojis and stickers that are so popular with Chinese mobile users.

#9: 360 Mobile Security

This app serves as both antivirus and memory management app and is most popular with Android devices, although it can installed with iPhones as well. It was developed by the second most popular Chinese search engine, Qihoo, also known as 360 Search. Qihoo 360 security software has a large install base on desktop, largely thanks to its free antivirus software.

#10: YouKu

YouKu is the largest video hosting platform and is among most popular video mobile apps in China. Although, it has been losing its mobile share market to Tencent, YouKu isn’t too far behind in terms of popularity. Often associated with pirated shows and films in the past, YouKu has largely cleaned up its act and now claims to only host legitimate content. Millions of Chinese tune to YouKu for their favorite TV shows everyday.

The post Top 10 Most Popular Mobile Apps in China first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Top 10 Most Popular Mobile Apps in China appeared first on Sampi.co.

Up until the release of new search function, searching on WeChat was, perhaps, the most frustrating experience of the otherwise awesome app.

For example, unless you knew a specific official account’s registered ID and could input it precisely into the search prompt, finding it would be almost impossible. If you were searching for a specific topic or news, only the main keywords would return any meaningful results despite the fact that there could millions conversations on the same topic taking place on WeChat.

With the integration of the new enhanced WeChat search function things have changed dramatically. It is now, in almost every respect, a proper search tool, not unlike Baidu or Qihoo.

First, if you haven’t enabled WeChat search function with your app, here is how to do it: go to Settings -> WeChat Labs. Then tap on “Top stories” and set it to “enable”, then do the same for “Search” from the same WeChat Labs screen.

The new WeChat search function is still quite different compared to Baidu mainly because it only shows content that was published on WeChat rather than elsewhere on the internet. Therefore, for now, it can’t completely replace Baidu or other search engines with wider reach.

On the other hand, it is safe to assume that WeChat search function will continue evolving to become more of a traditional search platform competing head to head with Baidu and other search heavyweights.

Here is what we should expect from future versions of WeChat search:

Sponsored search and advertisement

Paid ads is the main moneymaker for search engines and social media platforms, so there is little doubt that WeChat is going in the same direction. Most likely it will be a gradual process for several reasons: WeChat has been cautious in introducing advertising in the past and is likely to roll out more advertising options slowly and carefully.

Expanding search results

Tencent is a major shareholder in Sogou, the third largest search engine in China. It means that, technically, they should be able to integrate traditional search results from wider internet with those that only cover content published on WeChat. Perhaps, this would allow them to become a real competitor with Baidu on the quality and reach of internet search.

Integration with ecommerce

WeChat search has an incredible potential to drive ecommerce traffic to thousands of WeChat stores and compete with the industry giants like Taobao, Tmall and JD.com. All the ingredients for a successful integration of a shopping experience into WeChat are already in place: ecommerce option for WeChat accounts and WeChat Pay system. What was missing is the tool for users to search for products – exactly what new WeChat search function should be able to address.

Highly customized search experience

Unlike other search engines, WeChat has unique capability to connect searches with real users which is much bigger feat for Baidu or other traditional search engines. Someone who is using Baidu doesn’t have to be logged in or even have an account. In those cases, for the purpose of tracking search history and behavior, Baidu primarily relies on cookies placed in users’ browser cache. This means that tracking users and connecting them to real people is much harder for traditional search engines.

WeChat on the other hand knows much more about their users including their real names and phone numbers (all accounts have to be verified with user ID in order to have access to most useful functions), real time location, shopping history, their spending habits and even their account balance. In addition, the type of content those users have been consuming and other accounts they are following completes the picture of their interests and habits. This wealth of data gives WeChat unmatched potential to tailor results to specific users that would be most relevant to them in place and time.

In conclusion, the introduction of the latest WeChat search function is going to be the beginning of the new era in WeChat dominance and, perhaps, marks a decline of some of the traditional search tools and platforms.

The post WeChat Search Function Expansion and What May Be Coming Next first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post WeChat Search Function Expansion and What May Be Coming Next appeared first on Sampi.co.

Baidu is the Chinese version Google. It is the largest search engine and is, in terms of business interests, as diverse. Alibaba is the world largest ecommerce operator that runs Taobao and Tmall, two main shopping sites in China. Tencent is the company behind WeChat, the most popular mobile based social app, as well as QQ, the messenger service.

All three China BAT giants, however, almost never get along. In fact, the war between them often comes at the expense of users’ convenience, although everyone accepts it as another fact of life in China.

For example, Baidu blocks search results from Alibaba ecommerce sites. Tencent doesn’t allow users to open Taobao and Tmall links in WeChat browser. Alibaba blocks rival payment systems on their sites and the list goes on.

Here is our latest infographic on those three companies.

China BAT: Baidu Alibaba Tencent

The post Infographic on China BAT: Baidu Alibaba Tencent first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Infographic on China BAT: Baidu Alibaba Tencent appeared first on Sampi.co.

In fact, every QQ user is also a Qzone member making this platform the biggest in China by the number of subscribers. Unfortunately, despite being an enormous network, Tencent hasn’t been able to capitalize on QQ and Qzone marketing. The main sources of network’s revenue are games, sales of digital items and paid membership. Also, arguably, they are in the process of being cannibalized by WeChat, a more innovative service from Tencent.

For advertisers, QQ offers banner placement in the app as well as pop ups but those are quite expensive and, nowadays, largely considered ineffective. The social media outlet connected to QQ messenger, Qzone is divided into different functions. It includes homepage, status, blog, background music, albums, personal information, shared documents, friend visits, friend show, video show, and games. It also allows a high degree of profile customization and connectivity to 3rd party applications. Its overall profile design approach is more similar to MySpace rather than Facebook.

Qzone marketing basically come in 2 varieties: sponsored posts in the user feed and banner ads. After series of page redesigns over the past few years, banners now show up on either left or right side from the feed.

Currently, Qzone for mobile doesn’t show any ads and the stress is made on integrating it with QQ messenger while enhancing user experience by adding more options to the core messaging function.

Other methods of Qzone marketing include posting directly in the relevant group discussions as well as commenting. Obviously, this requires maintaining an active presence on the network and making sure that the profile is updated frequently. Luckily, some 3rd party solutions offer cross posting on a number of different platforms, unfortunately, except the most popular – WeChat.

Since Qzone is mostly used by younger audience with limited spending potential it makes it less suitable for promoting large number of categories of products and services. Also, compared to other networks like Sina Weibo, it is more popular in 3rd and 4th tier cities. On the other hand, it still could be an effective route to reach a particular segment such as current or prospective students for example. Companies in educational space, foreign universities looking to attract new students, sellers of hot items popular with teenagers – all can find Qzone marketing an interesting channel to explore.

In the past, Qzone was the venue of choice for a number successful marketing campaigns like XiaoMi, a maker of popular cellphones, or Oreo cookies. Large number of celebrities still maintain active presence on the network, although it is unlikely to be their exclusive channel.

QQ messenger is often used as a direct communication option such as for customer or tech support. This is why it is often included in websites along with other communication options.

In addition, QQ messenger allows creation of groups (limited to 200 members for basic users and up to 1000 for VIP paid accounts) that can also be leveraged as an effective marketing channel. This feature allows for similar users can be grouped together and engaged all at once.

The post Overview of Chinese Social Media Marketing Channels, Part 1: QQ and Qzone Marketing first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Overview of Chinese Social Media Marketing Channels, Part 1: QQ and Qzone Marketing appeared first on Sampi.co.

Chinese online shoppers also grew to trust online payments and the vast majority is quite comfortable using it to pay for purchases on the internet. Alipay, the most popular Chinese online payment system by Alibaba, holds the largest market share. It powers two largest ecommerce platforms, Taobao and Tmall and is extensively used in large number of third party applications and platforms.

Main Chinese Online Payment Systems

As of the end of 2015, Alipay accounted for almost 70% of the entire Chinese online payment market. It is fair to say that almost everyone in China with a cellphone and a bank account has Alipay account which is somewhere around 700 million.

Alipay transaction fees are also much lower than PayPal. In general, cross border transactions are the most expensive but it depends on the type of contract a merchant has with Alipay as well as the volume.

The second largest online payment system is TenPay developed by Tencent. In fact, TenPay also powers WeChat Pay, the payment system used by WeChat users. Thanks to this app’s explosive growth, TenPay was able to increase its market share quite significantly during 2015 to about 20%, primarily on the account of Alipay.

WeChat Pay is now extensively used for many types of transactions. With web payments, customers simply scan the QR Code on their mobile phone with WeChat to make a payment to a website. For mobile users, WeChat Pay is used for payment within WeChat Official Accounts to enable sales from within the app.

Both Alipay and WeChat Pay are increasingly used for offline transactions at traditional stores and restaurants in China and even abroad. A customer simply opens the app in order to allow the merchant to scan their QR code with a special scanner or, often, just another smartphone. As many phones now have fingerprint scanning sensor, placing a finger on it is all it takes to complete a transaction (otherwise, a customer has to type in their secret code on their phone). Alternatively, a customer can scan a merchant’s QR code to send the payment but this way is becoming less common at the traditional point of sale.

Since those type of transactions are free to customers, Alipay and WeChat Pay serve as substitutes for carrying cash or credit cards and offer both security and convenience.

Alipay and TenPay (WeChat Pay) account for almost 90% of current mobile payment with other players, such as Lakala, JD wallet, YeePay, 99Bill and others quite far behind.

As for foreign alternatives, PayPal was not able to get any meaningful user base so far and is unlikely to do so in the future. Apple Pay still barely registers in China mobile payment market, although it is still quite new.

The post What You Need to Know About Chinese Online Payment Systems first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post What You Need to Know About Chinese Online Payment Systems appeared first on Sampi.co.

Just a few years ago, when the service just started, most of WeChat revenue came from selling stickers. Fast forward to the present, with over half of China’s population using the app on daily basis, the revenue mainly comes from gaming and WeChat ads. Recent reports indicate a 22-percent increase in the company’s profit during the fourth quarter of 2015.

How do WeChat ads work?

Unfortunately, there are many problems with WeChat ads marketing and Tencent has been quite inefficient to address them. First, from the user side, the adverts are hated quite universally. This is the main reason that Tencent has recently scaled down the rates at which ads appear inside the accounts.

On the other hand, from the marketers’ perspective, WeChat ads are so expensive that only big brands with deep pockets can afford it. Cost per click goes for RMB 4-5 which is significantly higher than with other digital media in China. Besides, since it shows on a small mobile screen, it is too easy to click a WeChat banner ad by mistake. That doesn’t help with the ROI either.

Another type of WeChat ads, those appears in Moments, WeChat user’s feed, have much more potential. Unfortunately, they are not showing enough to be effective and, for the most part, irrelevant which makes them a nuisance.

WeChat has been slow to introduce so called programmatic ads buying system, instead relying on contract between the platform and advertisers. Although, the option is now available to everyone with verified account, it lacks a lot of functionality.
When it comes to accurate targeting, WeChat advertising lacks it almost entirely. Currently, the users can only be targeted by basic demographics like their gender and location set at the time of signing up for the account (which may not even be the same as their present or actual one). There is no way to set define any behavior targeting in the same way as Facebook does it with Facebook ads. Being a mobile network, WeChat doesn’t even allow retrieving a user’s present location. The only chance to grab their actual location is when users initiate some type of interaction with the official account, such as via chat or built-in functions.

This approach has probably a lot to do with the fact that WeChat positions itself as a private communication tool first and everything else second. It is not a discovery network like Weibo, as users primarily interact within their circle of connections and with the official accounts they have followed. Tencent does not allow for a 3rd party to get data on a specific user behaviors, their connections or what they share or like.

There are certainly many people in China who appreciate it, however, as studies with other Chinese social networks have shown, Chinese are not as concerned about privacy as their Western counterparts.

Clearly, Tencent could do so much more with their WeChat ads to make the system “marketer’s friendly” and, at the same time, benefiting users by displaying relevant ads other then annoying junk. Rumors are that something is in the works and we are going to see some changes this year.

The post Will Tencent Offer More With WeChat Ads? first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Will Tencent Offer More With WeChat Ads? appeared first on Sampi.co.

Didi-Kuaidi, valued at $15 billion, boasts more than one million drivers in 360 cities, compared to Uber’s roughly 100,000 drivers in 20 cities. It has also recently invested $100 million in Uber’s main rival Lyft. Two companies agreed to offer services to each other’s users in the countries where each isn’t currently present.

What are the reasons for Uber in China being unable to become the market leader despite having an early mover advantage?

The claim that a foreign service provider being squeezed out by the government in favor the local competitor doesn’t really hold water. Beijing’s recently published draft law on regulating private car-hailing services is going to affect both rivals equally. In fact, Uber China is already structured as a local company in the eyes of Chinese law. Uber Global is listed as an investor of Uber China, among several others mostly local companies.

There are, however, three main reasons why Didi-Kuaidi has managed to capture commanding market share and all of them have to do with Chinese rival’s better understanding of the market.

First reason is the fact that Didi-Kuaidi, unlike Uber, doesn’t see traditional taxi industry as the enemy. In fact, it treats it as a partner and cooperated with taxi drivers by distributing their mobile apps among them to be used as an additional channel to attract more passengers. This allowed Didi-Kuadi to quickly gain more drivers, enabling the company to scale much faster and in more cities than Uber in China.

The second reason is strategic partnership with the right internet conglomerates: Alibaba and Tencent. On the opposite side, Uber has managed to secure strong backing of another internet giant Baidu, the third member of the infamous Chinese BAT (the collective term used to describe three companies that practically run Chinese internet).

Unfortunately to Uber, Tencent and Alibaba are much better positioned to add value to a car sharing service. Tencent is behind WeChat, most popular mobile social media app that has now integrated private cab hailing capability within the app itself. Uber has already complained that WeChat is shutting them out of the app but there is little they can do about it.

Alibaba, the largest ecommerce company in the world, has been integrating similar capability into its Alipay mobile wallet used by hundreds of millions of Chinese on daily basis.

On the other hand, Baidu does have a potential to help Uber getting more clients through its mobile navigation app, although it is still not as popular as WeChat or Alipay Wallet and has many rivals in this market. Recently, Baidu started to add Uber pickup points to its map – a new service that Uber has been introducing in some cities.

The third reason of why Uber in China couldn’t catch the lead is the fact that it was too slow to introduce features that Chinese users seem to like. Didi-Kuaidi has been much more innovative in this regard by offering more ride options to its users. For example, it has a popular group ride-sharing service along defined routes called “Hitch.” The company even tapped into busy travel market by offering bus services to tour groups and transportation to events. In addition, in an effort to help with drunk driving problem, the company has also launched a new “chauffeur service” that enables customers to hire a designated driver to take them back home in their own car.

So far, it hasn’t been easy for Uber in China but it certainly isn’t going anywhere. Even a tenth of China’s lucrative market of 800 million city dwellers represents a much larger business than in many of other Uber’s locations where it dominates the market.

The post Uber in China: 3 Reasons Why It Still Lags Behind first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Uber in China: 3 Reasons Why It Still Lags Behind appeared first on Sampi.co.

With over 83% of Chinese regularly accessing internet with mobile devices, it is no surprise that shopping online is quickly becoming one of their most favorite activities. Alibaba, China’s ecommerce giant, has seen this trend developing well in advance and made sure that Alipay, Alibaba’s payment system, will become the payment method of choice for millions of mobile shoppers.

As a result, mobile payments in China are dominated by Alibaba with its Alipay wallet app. Tenpay, the system developed by Tencent, is a distant second with only 8.9% market share vs. Alipay’s 79.9%

As the infographic further illustrates, mobile payments in China are mainly used for online shopping (63.2% of the time) followed by banking with 36.3%. Here is the full infographic:

Mobile Payments in China

The post Mobile Payments in China: Infographic first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Mobile Payments in China: Infographic appeared first on Sampi.co.

In the last 3 years, online advertising revenues in China have been growing at the rate of about 40% on year to year basis and show no signs of slowing down in 2015. According to iResearch, it is projected that this year, the total market will reach 216 billion yuan (almost $40 billion), up from 154 billion yuan in 2014.

Advertising with search engines is still the most popular choice (36.6% of the market), followed by ecommerce ads and brand graphic ads (banner advertising) at 24.1% and 17.2% respectively.

In those two categories, the leading providers are Baidu which holds about 60% of search engine market and Taobao, one of the ecommerce properties of Alibaba.

The infographic also features the results of surveys which were intended to find out what type of improvements users would expect in China digital advertising market in the future. One third of the respondents would like see more correlation between the ads and their interests. This further underscores the need for marketers to learn more about their target audience in order to improve their advertising ROI.

Here is the full infographic:

China Digital Advertising Market

The post China Digital Advertising Market: Infographic first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post China Digital Advertising Market: Infographic appeared first on Sampi.co.