China’s mobile internet market expanded 93 per cent to CNY52.56 billion ($8.55 billion) in Q3 compared to a year ago and 11 per cent from Q2.
The country’s mobile internet market got a strong boost from the three mobile operators strongly pushing 4G smartphones to replace 3G and 2G handsets. At the end of Q3, the country had an estimated 45 million 4G connections, according to GSMA Intelligence.
Beijing-based iResearch said 4G uses are now demanding more sophisticated mobile services. The rapid growth was also attributed to traditional industries such as retail, transportation and healthcare looking to expand business by launching internet services and mobile apps.
Mobile shopping accounted (see chart, click to expand) for 51 per cent of mobile internet revenue during the quarter – that’s up from 35.5 per cent a year ago. Mobile value-added services’ share of the revenue fell to 20 per cent from 34.5 per cent a year ago and 62 per cent in Q3 2012. Both mobile marketing and mobile gaming were fairly stable, with marketing accounting for 15.3 per cent of revenue and gaming 13.5 per cent.
After a number of years of rapid growth and an expanding user base, the market has matured and is now more stable and developing in a sustainable way, iResearch said.
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