On January 30, Questmobile, a well-known domestic business intelligence data service provider, released the "2023 China Mobile Internet Annual Report". According to the report, the total number of mobile Internet users in China will reach 12 in 20232.7 billion, maintaining a stable growth rate of 2% throughout the year; In terms of user structure, the number of active users in first-tier, new first-tier and second-tier cities increased by 105%, showing that under the urbanization effect, users are gathering in large and medium-sized cities, although the total number of users maintains a low growth rate, but the quality of users is accelerating.
The continuous improvement of user quality has led to changes in consumption patterns, which in turn has driven changes in Internet use and traffic patterns, combined with the continuous application of new technologies such as AI, which has brought new variables to the development pattern of the mobile Internet.
The improvement of user quality has brought about three major changes in Internet applications.
According to QuestMobile data, as of December 2023, there are 12 companies with a total of more than 500 million users, of which Tencent Holdings, Alibaba, the Group and Douyin Group all have more than 1 billion corporate users, 122.1 billion, 115.1 billion, 110.2 billion, 105.7 billion; Ant Group, Pinduoduo, Meituan, JD.com, Kuaishou, Tencent**, China Mobile, and Weibo all have more than 500 million users, with 91.2 billion, 88.1 billion, 87.8 billion, 68.1 billion, 57.2 billion, 54.5 billion, 5300 million, 52.9 billion.
Although the structure of the mobile Internet platform has not changed in terms of the overall pattern, throughout 2023, with the continuous change of user structure, especially the proportion of active users in first-tier, new first-tier and second-tier cities will continue to increase to 105%, which has brought about a rapid improvement in user quality, which has led to three major changes in the entire Internet usage and traffic pattern.
First of all, after more than a decade of continuous growth, the stickiness of mobile Internet usage will decline slightly in 2023. In December 2023, the average monthly average duration of mobile Internet was 1659 hours, a year-on-year decrease of nearly 12 hours, about 7%; The average number of uses per capita per month is 25596 times, a slight decrease of nearly 3% year-on-year; The number of apps used per capita per month continued to rise slightly year-on-year, indicating that the competition for users' attention of various apps is still intensifying. At the same time, users pay more attention to offline and outdoor lifestyles and consumption patterns.
Secondly, offline related online applications have seen sustained and high-speed growth against the trend. For example, cultural tourism consumption, which can be called the king of experience consumption, is typical, and in 2023, film performances, train services, car services, and ** tourism related to cultural tourism consumption will increase year-on-year. 1%；Of course, the same is true for consumption related to people's lives, and bus services, idle transactions, takeaway services, and local life have also continued to be hot, increasing respectively. 4%。
Third, the popularity of AI large models has led to the continuous high growth of intelligence-related applications, not only giving birth to "consumer-grade AI" applications such as Wenxin Yiyan, iFLYTEK Xinghuo, Doubao, Tongyi Qianwen, etc., but also many "AI+" application fields, such as shopping, office, shooting, etc. The applications of both intelligent and offline scenarios are more popular, for example, smart cars, smart accessories, smart wearables, and smart homes, respectively, with a growth rate. 4%, and the scale of users in these typical industries has also reached 76.01 million, 22.77 million, 116.03 million, and 293.97 million respectively.
The improvement of user quality "drives" the industry to improve the quality of development".
The continuous improvement of user quality has led to a qualitative change in consumption patterns, rational restraint, healthy diet, outdoor activities and experiential consumption have become the core demands, for example, in terms of rational consumption, "it's not that down jackets can't afford to buy, but military coats are more cost-effective" is popular on the whole network, in the context of down jackets, netizens have a heated discussion on both practical and economical military coats, and behind it is the consumption mentality of the younger generation of users is becoming more and more mature.
Similarly, there is a consumption pattern of low-sugar and sugar-free healthy diets, as well as a lifestyle consumption mode that pays more attention to real offline sports and goes outdoors. From the perspective of the volume of "outdoor sports" on the six major content platforms, camping in spring and summer, skiing in winter, as well as cycling and citywalk, which are very popular throughout the year, have the highest average monthly volume of nearly 50,000 articles, which further highlights the "post-epidemic era" and the healthy lifestyle towards "quality first".
Similar to the demand driven by users, the continuous development of technologies such as AI large models has also stimulated the industry to continue to pursue "quantity" to "quality". In smart devices, domestic smartphone manufacturers in addition to processors, screens, cameras, battery life, have rolled up "AI model" mobile phones, Huawei's Pangu model, OPPO's Andean model, vivo's blue heart model, Xiaomi's milm, Glory's magic model, are ahead of international brands to take the lead in releasing and launching.
In terms of the active performance of the final terminal brand market, in December 2023, Huawei's active devices accounted for 228%, Apple, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, and Honor are respectively. 8%。On the whole, domestic brands such as Huawei, OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi have steadily occupied more than 7% of the market share.
In terms of online product applications, content platforms and e-commerce (and life services) "complement each other's strengths". Content platforms have started e-commerce and life services, shortening service paths, not only Douyin, Kuaishou and other short ** platforms in the field of e-commerce, Bilibili and **APP overlap user scale increased by 170%，；Both e-commerce and life service platforms have strengthened content construction to improve the quality of users' shopping and consumption experience, and in December 2023, the average monthly time spent on the Meituan app increased by 8% year-on-year9%, *JD app** live broadcast user proportion further increased to. 1%。
As for brand marketing, from "Zibo Barbecue" to "Harbin Ice and Snow", from "Sauce Latte" to "Crazy Zootopia Metro", from "Military Coat" to "Citywalk", any brand must adhere to innovative experience, cross-border co-branding, cost-effective and other "high-quality play" in order to catch this "splashing wealth".
Text: Beijing Youth Daily reporter Wen Jing.
Edited by Field.