In 2015, China’s personal Internet applications developed rapidly. Except /BBS, the user scale of other applications showed an upward trend. Among them, online stock trading or fund speculation became a hot spot for netizens to invest, with the user scale increasing by 54.3%, and the online payment scenarios were constantly enriched, with the user scale increasing by 36.8%. On the mobile side, business transactions and online financial applications are still leading, and the user scale of other applications has increased in different degrees.
There is limited room for improving the utilization rate of basic applications, and the user experience has made a big breakthrough.
Internet applications based on instant messaging, search engines, online news and social networking have maintained a steady and rising trend in user scale: the utilization rate of instant messaging has basically peaked, and the trend of extending from basic functions is more obvious, becoming a comprehensive platform for users to connect with various life services; The transformation of search engine from information service to ecological platform service has been rapidly promoted, and the rapid growth of mobile search engine market has been continued; The online news market is developing towards the integration of "senior editors" and "intelligent algorithms" to achieve accurate and personalized recommendations; Social applications are integrated with other fields with the help of big data and mobile social technology.
Business transaction applications maintained steady growth, and enterprises actively expanded the market and explored new growth points.
Business transaction applications have entered a period of steady development after years of rapid growth. The online shopping market has maintained rapid development, and cross-border e-commerce and rural e-commerce have become market hotspots; The group buying industry continues to "de-group buying" and dig deep into the consumption potential of online to offline; The online ordering market actively expands offline merchants under the strategic capital injection of large Internet companies; Driven by the rapid growth of tourism consumption, the online travel booking industry has developed rapidly.
Online entertainment applications have developed steadily, with high-quality content as the core to promote the rapid growth of entertainment applications.
In 2015, the online entertainment industry chain with intellectual property as the core showed great commercial value. The film and television works adapted from popular online literature works not only reached new heights, but also the adapted games quickly gained the attention of loyal fans. The successful adaptation of film and television and games also fed back the development of online literature itself, prompting its business model to change from simply charging users to expanding the audience with free mode and then cultivating high-quality IP(Intellectual Property). At the same time, with the development of live video service, live video of online music festivals has become a new business model being explored, which not only attracts users, but also provides new development opportunities for music practitioners.
Internet regular financial management has become popular, and online payment has rapidly expanded to offline payment scenarios.
In 2015, the development of Internet finance applications was further deepened: while the scale of users in the Internet wealth management market continued to expand, the product structure has changed from the current wealth management products in the early stage of development to the common development of current and regular wealth management products; Online payment quickly extended and expanded to offline payment scenarios, and actively opened foreign currency payment and other services, which increased the number of online payment users by 112 million compared with the end of 2014.
The medical and educational service modes have been accelerated to be networked, and the Internet has effectively improved the level of public services.
In 2015, the influence of the Internet on personal lifestyle was further deepened and integrated into people’s livelihood services such as education, medical care and transportation. The survey results show that the number of users of public service applications such as online education, internet medical care and online car rental is over 100 million, and user habits are gradually developed.
(A) the development of basic applications
1.1 Instant messaging
As of December 2015, the number of instant messaging users among netizens reached 624 million, an increase of 36.32 million compared with the end of 2014, accounting for 90.7% of the total netizens, including 557 million mobile instant messaging users, an increase of 49.57 million compared with the end of 2014, accounting for 89.9% of mobile netizens.
Internet users’ usage rate of instant messaging is still the highest among all kinds of applications, and the scale of users is still increasing. The development direction of instant messaging based on market share is very different. For mainstream instant messaging, because the user utilization rate has basically peaked, its development direction has begun to shift from meeting the basic communication needs of users to exploring new services, thus forming a value extension based on enhancing user stickiness. For other instant messaging tools, it is still its development focus to increase the user scale by tapping the vertical user needs.
The advertising business of instant messaging has achieved significant growth in 2015. On the one hand, PC-side instant messaging tools are more closely related to e-commerce websites, and users’ potential shopping needs can be more clearly obtained through instant messaging user portraits, thus delivering traffic to e-commerce websites. On the other hand, the advertising mode of instant messaging on the mobile phone has been widely recognized. WeChat friends circle advertising has made great contributions to its advertising business revenue only after it was launched for one year, and corporate WeChat official account has gradually become a standard in the marketing process of merchants’ products.
In addition, the situation that instant messaging extends outward from basic functions is more obvious, and it has gradually become a comprehensive platform to connect various services in users’ lives while enhancing users’ stickiness. In addition to providing users with basic information communication services, instant messaging service companies are constantly committed to the development of mobile payment, and use this as a link to connect users’ shopping, travel, entertainment business needs and people’s livelihood services such as medical care, government office and public payment. In the future, instant messaging will be the most basic application type in the daily life of netizens, and its value as an information communication tool will be reflected in more life scenarios.
1.2 search engines
As of December 2015, the number of users of search engines in China reached 566 million, with a utilization rate of 82.3%, and the number of users increased by 44 million compared with the end of 2014, with a growth rate of 8.4%; The number of mobile phone search users reached 478 million, with a utilization rate of 77.1%, and the user scale increased by 48.7 million compared with the end of 2014, with an increase rate of 11.3%. Search engine is the basic internet application, and its usage rate is second only to instant messaging. Mobile phone search ranks third in the application of mobile phone internet, and its usage rate is lower than that of mobile phone instant messaging and mobile phone network news.
In 2015, the rapid growth of the mobile search market continued. First, the number of mobile search users is still growing faster than the whole field; Second, the search traffic from the mobile terminal completely exceeds the PC terminal. In the third quarter of 2015, the corporate financial report showed that more than two-thirds of Baidu’s search traffic came from the mobile terminal, and sogou search’s mobile terminal traffic also exceeded the PC terminal; Thirdly, mobile revenue has contributed more and more to the overall revenue growth. The financial report shows that Baidu’s mobile revenue has increased from 50% in the first quarter to 54% in the third quarter, and sogou’s mobile search revenue has also increased from 22% in the first quarter to 30% in the third quarter.
The transformation of search engine from information service to ecological platform continues to advance. The major search platforms integrate advanced technologies such as voice recognition, image recognition, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and rely on basic search services to provide search services for maps, shopping, local life services, news, social networking and other contents. Through in-depth excavation of user behavior big data, search product innovation and user experience are realized, providing better services for netizens and enterprises, and thus achieving new growth and e-commerce transaction scale in different aspects.
Big data and intelligent technology complement each other to promote the development of search technology to cope with the rapid increase in the scale and complexity of Internet data. On the one hand, based on the website cooperation plan and search open platform, a large number of high-quality content in the deep network and the dark network (Note 13) are gradually included in the crawling range of search engines, and the search quality is improved imperceptibly; On the other hand, under the trend that the economy shifts from offline to online, and the Internet of Things and the Internet merge with each other, the search scene is fragmented, the information structure is complicated, and users’ search needs are more diversified, not only searching for Internet content, services, geographical location, but also searching for networked devices, which also poses a greater challenge to the intelligent level of search engine model algorithms and the display method of search results in the future.
1.3 Network news
As of December 2015, the number of online news users in China was 564 million, an increase of 45.46 million compared with the end of 2014, with a growth rate of 8.8%. The usage rate among netizens was 82.0%, an increase of 2 percentage points over the end of 2014. Among them, the number of mobile phone network news users was 482 million, an increase of 66.26 million compared with the end of 2014, with a growth rate of 16.0%, and the utilization rate of netizens was 77.7%, an increase of 3.1 percentage points compared with the end of 2014.
As a basic application of information, online news has become the third largest Internet application besides instant messaging and search engines. The number of users close to the overall size of netizens means that the cost of developing potential users will increase day by day, and the online news market will also follow the internet law of "the stronger the stronger", and the future market structure will be further clarified. Some brands with first-Mover advantage have rapidly accumulated users in the past two years, and will be more likely to become industry leaders-including portal news and information brands that have existed for many years and have influence, and emerging news and information brands that took advantage of technology or hardware and were born in the mobile era. For new entrants, it is difficult to become the news information media at the level of "entrance platform" in this market, and more opportunities will exist in the vertical field.
With the advent of the mobile era, the transformation of traditional paper media and portals is accelerating, self-media is constantly emerging, robots and algorithm technologies are constantly upgrading, and the production and dissemination of content have undergone profound changes. In the future, products in the field of online news will be iteratively upgraded to meet the diverse needs of news users under the background of information explosion. In the mobile and fragmented mobile era, "short, flat and fast" is still the basic attribute of online news. With the continuous maturity of the market, fierce user competition and user retention pressure will prompt online news to pay more attention to content quality and personalized and accurate recommendation. In the future, the online news information market will develop towards the integration of "senior editors" and "intelligent algorithms"-high-quality content will guide users to settle down, and intelligent technology will realize accurate and personalized recommendation, which will make it possible to meet the news information needs of users.
1.4 Social applications
With the development of mobile Internet, social applications (Note 14) have also entered a new stage. With the help of LBS, interest, address book and other functions, users can communicate, share, serve and entertain, and meet their needs in different scenarios. According to CNNIC’s analysis of the current social application market, the domestic social application market is mainly divided into two categories: one is the comprehensive social application with various information gathering, such as QQ Space and Weibo; The other category is relatively subdivided, professional and niche vertical social applications, such as photo/video social, community social, marriage/dating social, anonymous society, workplace social and so on.
In the field of comprehensive social interaction, the typical applications are QQ Space and Weibo, and the utilization rate of netizens is 65.1% and 33.5% respectively. Among them, QQ space mainly meets the needs of users for personal relationship chain information, and has always insisted on changes in product form and commercial marketing. With a good user base, it has made many useful explorations in relationship marketing based on big data, with remarkable returns; Weibo mainly meets users’ demand for interest information, and is an important platform for users to obtain and share "news hotspots", "interest content", "professional knowledge" and "public opinion orientation". At the same time, Weibo has also played an active role in helping users expand social relationships based on common interests. In the past year, Weibo adhered to the decentralization strategy, fostered various vertical industries from the media, stimulated the production of original content, attracted and maintained users’ activity with high-quality content, and the user scale grew steadily, further enhancing the value of the content platform.
For vertical social applications, social applications in different fields have different characteristics in user attributes and behaviors, business models, information categories and usage scenarios. At present, the depth of social applications used by domestic users is far from enough, and vertical social applications will be further developed in the future.
In the era of mobile Internet, with the help of big data and mobile social technology, social applications show remarkable characteristics of mobility and localization, and are a good commercial diversion entrance. At present, e-commerce, games, videos, and even online education and internet finance have all introduced social elements to drive the scale of users and enhance their stickiness. The development prospect of social applications in China is improving.
(B) Development of business transaction applications
2.1 Online shopping
By December 2015, the number of online shopping users in China had reached 413 million, an increase of 51.83 million compared with the end of 2014, with a growth rate of 14.3%. China’s online shopping market still maintained a steady growth rate. At the same time, the scale of mobile online shopping users in China has grown rapidly, reaching 340 million, with a growth rate of 43.9%, and the proportion of mobile online shopping has increased from 42.4% to 54.8%.
In 2015, government departments issued a number of policies to promote the rapid development of the online retail market. The internet plus Circulation Action Plan and the Guiding Opinions on Actively Promoting the internet plus Action clearly put forward: promoting e-commerce into rural areas, small and medium-sized cities, communities, online and offline integration and interaction, and upgrading industries in cross-border electronic commerce and other fields; Promote 11 key actions including collaborative manufacturing, modern agriculture and smart energy. The above policies are conducive to the construction of a large consumption pattern under the e-commerce model. "the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s Proposal on Formulating the Thirteenth Five-year Plan for National Economic and Social Development" puts forward "sharing" as one of the development concepts, and the "platform economy" of online retail conforms to this development concept, so that businesses and consumers can benefit from the co-construction and sharing of enterprise platforms.
With the support of policies, cross-border e-commerce has become a new growth point in the online retail market, and its influence has reached the whole world. According to the data of the Ministry of Commerce, the average growth rate of major cross-border e-commerce transactions in China is about 40%, of which the growth rate of import online retail is about 60% and that of export online retail is about 40%. The online retail platform introduces all imported categories of more than 5,000 overseas famous brands from more than 25 countries and regions such as the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea, and 50 million kinds of discounted goods from more than 5,000 domestic merchants are sold to 64 countries and regions including the Belt and Road Initiative. At the same time, online retail enterprises have tapped the consumption potential of rural markets, and the proportion of online shopping users in rural areas has reached 22.4%. Alibaba, JD.COM, Suning and other e-commerce platforms have set up e-commerce service stations in rural areas to recruit rural extension workers to serve the vast number of rural consumers.
2.2 group purchase
By December 2015, the number of group buying users in China had reached 180 million, an increase of 7.55 million compared with the end of 2014, with a growth rate of 4.4%, and 26.2% of netizens used the services of group buying websites. Compared with the overall group buying market, mobile phone group buying continued to maintain rapid growth, with the number of users reaching 158 million, with a growth rate of 33.1%, and the proportion of netizens using mobile phone group buying increased from 21.3% to 25.5%.
In 2015, the group buying industry continued to "de-group buying" and further developed online to offline. As a typical O2O application, group-buying websites have laid out the O2O market in depth under the impetus of the strategic investment of Internet companies such as Tencent and Baidu. Following the strategic shareholding in Public Comment in 2014, Tencent invested in the new company after the merger of Meituan and Public Comment in 2015. In 2014, Baidu wholly acquired the glutinous rice network. In 2015, it promised to invest 20 billion yuan in Baidu glutinous rice within three years. With the support of the capital market, on the one hand, the large and comprehensive group buying platform is "intensively cultivated" in the vertical field. For example, Meituan seeks business breakthroughs, expands mature single-line businesses in online to offline, such as cat’s eye movies, Meituan takeout, Meituan Hotel, etc., and implements the "T-strategy". Public comment attracts and maintains high-end users through years of review data, and drives low-frequency business with high-frequency business in O2O field expansion, taking the lead in opening up beauty, wedding, home improvement market and in-store payment business. On the other hand, group buying websites enhance the user experience through membership strategy and reverse the situation of low user stickiness. For example, Baidu glutinous rice focuses on the "member+"O2O ecological layout with Baidu’s brand endorsement, product support and O2O strategic capital injection, and develops product-side business around stored value cards, payment at the store and VIP membership. However, online to offline is not a "life-saving straw" for the group buying industry. Because, at present, O2O is still in a state of long-term subsidy burning money, and the future profit prospects are still unclear. Online to offline is relatively mature in high-frequency categories such as catering, movies and take-away.However, the market potential of low-frequency categories such as home economics, beauty, manicure and hairdressing is overestimated.
2.3 Online Takeaway
As of December 2015, the number of online take-out users reached 114 million, accounting for 16.5% of the total netizens, among which the number of mobile online take-out users was 104 million, accounting for 16.8% of mobile netizens. After the eco-platform model with short-distance logistics as the core value was defined in 2015, online take-out achieved rapid development, and gradually formed a relatively clear industry pattern in the tide of O2O industry integration in the second half of the year, with a high market concentration, but there are also many problems to be solved behind the rapid development.
In 2015, online take-out was transformed from a single merchant’s take-out distribution business model to an ecological industrial cluster model in which a professional take-out distribution platform docked with multiple merchants, and achieved rapid development. Since the second half of the year, various domestic O2O fields have been integrated under the impetus of capital power, and the entry of large-scale Internet enterprises’ capital has gradually made the previously chaotic online take-away market pattern clear. Tencent increased its investment after the merger of Meituan and Dianping to expand its influence on Meituan’s take-out. At the end of the year, Alibaba also supplemented its word-of-mouth O2O business by investing in Hungry. Together with Baidu’s take-out, the users of the three take-out distribution platforms accounted for 83.4% of the total online take-out users, and the market structure of online take-out platforms has been formed.
However, with the expansion of the scale of the take-away platform, the business qualification of merchants, personnel management and traffic safety of the distribution team, which have been puzzling its business development, have gradually begun to attract social attention. At the same time, the intensification of market competition makes it difficult for the take-away platform to obtain higher profits and establish a competitive advantage by simply catering express business, and it is also difficult to maintain the promotion method of subsidizing cooperative merchants for a long time. Therefore, how to strictly check the qualifications of the merchants staying in the foreign selling platform, improve the management ability of the distribution team, tap the specific needs of users and provide them with high value-added services are important issues that need to be considered in the future take-away platform.
2.4 Travel reservation
By December 2015, the number of Internet users who had booked air tickets, hotels, train tickets or travel and holiday products online reached 260 million, an increase of 37.82 million compared with the end of 2014, with a growth rate of 17.1%. Internet users who book train tickets, air tickets, hotels and holiday products online account for 28.6%, 14.5%, 14.7% and 7.7% respectively. At the same time, the number of Internet users booking air tickets, hotels, train tickets or travel and holiday products by mobile phone reached 210 million, an increase of 75.69 million compared with the end of December 2014, with a growth rate of 56.4%. The proportion of Chinese netizens using mobile phones to book online travel has increased from 24.1% to 33.9%.
The tourist demand of China residents is increasing gradually. According to the data of National Tourism Administration, in 2015, China ranked first in the world in terms of domestic tourism, outbound tourism, domestic tourism consumption and overseas tourism consumption. The overseas travel market continues to be hot, and more and more countries, including Australia, Singapore, the United States and Canada, have introduced convenient visa policies for China tourists, which has stimulated people’s higher enthusiasm for tourism consumption, thus accelerating the development of China’s tourism industry. The status and role of tourism industry in improving people’s living standards, alleviating the pressure of urban residents’ life, stimulating domestic demand and promoting national consumption are becoming more and more obvious.
The increase of residents’ travel demand promotes the development of online travel booking industry. Online travel booking companies give consideration to both low-end and high-end markets, and use the profits earned in the high-end market to support the competitive cost of the low-end market. From the development trend of enterprises, in the field of air ticket booking, the direct mode will become the mainstream of industry development. On the one hand, the development momentum of airline direct business is improving year by year, and it is necessary to tighten the profit market of air ticket booking; On the other hand, some online travel booking companies have problems of irregular operation and lax supervision, and airlines have rectified their ticket agency business to alleviate a large number of passenger complaints. With the introduction of continuous commission reduction or even zero commission strategy, the competition between airlines and online travel booking companies (specifically their air ticket agency business) is becoming increasingly fierce.
(C) the development of online finance applications
3.1 Internet financial management
In 2015, the development of Internet wealth management market was further deepened, and the product pattern changed greatly. It has changed from the initial development of demand wealth management products to a new situation in which demand wealth management products (Note 15) and fixed-term wealth management products (Note 16) develop together. By December 2015, the number of netizens who had purchased Internet wealth management products reached 90.26 million, an increase of 11.77 million compared with the end of 2014, and the utilization rate of netizens was 13.1%, an increase of 1.0 percentage points compared with the end of 2014.
In the economic environment of continuous "RRR cut and interest rate cut" by the central bank and continuous increase of money supply, the income of money fund Internet demand wealth management products and the interest rate of bank deposits have dropped simultaneously. At present, the yield of mainstream products has fallen below 3%, and the product positioning has changed from high-yield wealth management products to interest-bearing cash management tools. According to this survey, as of December 2015, the number of Internet current wealth management users was 85.94 million, which was higher than that at the end of 2014.
Internet regular wealth management products became popular in 2015. According to this survey, as of December 2015, the number of users reached 17.89 million. The rapid growth of Internet regular wealth management users is mainly due to the following reasons:
From the user’s point of view, first, the continuous decline in the income of Internet demand wealth management products has shifted users’ wealth management needs to relatively high-yield regular wealth management products; Second, due to the shock of the stock market in 2015, the public investment demand turned to regular wealth management products with stable income; Thirdly, after the healthy development of the previous market, users have developed a strong sense of security for online financial products, laying a good foundation for the development of online regular financial products.
From the product side, first, financial institutions design more low-threshold regular wealth management products according to the characteristics of Internet wealth management; Second, Internet companies use big data, cloud computing and other technical means to participate in product design, lowering the purchase threshold and improving the liquidity of regular wealth management products, making some online regular products more attractive; Third, the online regular financial sales platform brings together many financial resources such as funds, insurance, bills and loans, providing users with rich purchase options.
3.2 Online payment
As of December 2015, the number of users using online payment in China reached 416 million, an increase of 112 million compared with the end of 2014, with a growth rate of 36.8%. Compared with December 2014, the proportion of Chinese netizens using online payment increased from 46.9% to 60.5%. It is worth noting that in 2015, the growth of mobile online payment was particularly rapid, with the number of users reaching 358 million, with a growth rate of 64.5%, and the proportion of users using mobile online payment increased from 39.0% to 57.7%.
In 2015, online payment developed rapidly and the popularization process accelerated. First, online payment enterprises vigorously expand online and offline channels, enrich payment scenarios, and play the "e-wallet" function of online payment. On the one hand, online payment companies use the marketing strategy of two-way subsidies to merchants and consumers to promote offline merchants to open mobile payment services. On the other hand, online payment companies have opened foreign currency payment services to expand overseas consumer payment markets. Second, online payment and personal credit investigation are linked to build a credit consumption system. At the beginning of 2015, eight institutions, including Sesame Credit, Tencent Credit and Lacarra Credit, obtained the personal credit business license of the central bank. Under the gradually established credit system, bad credit behaviors will be recorded, and their consumption behavior will be restricted through online payment, forcing users to pay attention to the maintenance of personal credit, thus standardizing and improving the payment environment for online credit consumption.
At the same time, the risk of online payment still exists, and third-party payment can easily become a cash-out tool. Under the e-commerce payment system, consumers or businesses can cash out directly through WeChat payment, Alipay and credit card online without POS machines, and the operation mode is simpler and more subtle. With the diversified development of network formats, it is more and more difficult to supervise online credit card cashing.
(D) Development of online entertainment applications
4.1 Online Games
As of December 2015, the number of online game users among netizens reached 391 million, an increase of 25.62 million compared with the end of 2014, accounting for 56.9% of the total netizens, of which the number of mobile online game users was 279 million, an increase of 31.05 million compared with the end of 2014, accounting for 45.1% of mobile netizens.
From the perspective of business development, the domestic mobile game industry gradually matured in 2015 after a period of rapid growth in user scale since 2013. The specific performance is that the user’s ability to pay has been significantly improved, the types of subdivided games have been recognized by the market, and the user’s game experience has been further enhanced by the improvement of software and hardware technology. It is worth noting that subdivided game types such as strategy, shooting, and even dressing up for female users have entered the forefront of the application bestseller list, which has changed the situation of serious homogenization of game types in the previous market. This change affects the single and solidified game evaluation method before the game channel, provides more innovation space for game developers, and reduces the right to speak of mobile game distribution channels in the industrial chain to some extent.
In 2015, the number of client games that went online in China and gained a large number of users in a short period of time was small, and most users concentrated on competitive games that had been in operation for more than three or four years, which made the competitive development trend of client games more obvious, and the surrounding ecological industries with it as the core also flourished. The income and bonus of competitive client-side game events have reached a new high, and the new formats such as star players, game anchors and events around their birth have gradually matured. Among them, the live game business is favored by investors, and many short-established live game platforms completed financing in 2015, but the profit model of this kind of business is not yet fully mature, and it will take a long time to explore in the future.
In addition, as the downstream link of IP(Intellectual Property) industrial chain, in 2015, many client games and mobile games adapted from online novels and TV dramas completed the transformation of a large number of loyal users in a short time. Pulling fans to pay for games with IP as the core has become a common means of game promotion. However, this result has also led to more intense competition among vendors for high-quality IP, and finally became a competition among vendors’ financial strength. In this context, small and medium-sized game development teams with relatively short funds give up the competition for high-priced IP and try to develop their own original IP for game creation, thus injecting new content elements into the game market.
4.2 Network literature
As of December 2015, the number of online literature users reached 297 million, an increase of 2.89 million compared with the end of 2014, accounting for 43.1% of the total netizens, of which the number of mobile phone online literature users was 259 million, an increase of 32.83 million compared with the end of 2014, accounting for 41.8% of mobile phone netizens.
In 2015, the film and television works adapted from online literature were repeatedly put on the screen and succeeded. IP(Intellectual Property) of high-quality online literature, with its huge potential commercial value, prompted major Internet companies to regard it as the strategic focus in the content field, which promoted the integration of online literature industry. Previously, the profit model of online literature websites relying solely on readers’ payment has gradually withdrawn from the stage, cultivating high-quality IP with a wide audience, and then selling copyright for a series of adaptations such as movies, TV dramas and games to seek cash has become the main development direction of the current online literature industry.
As the most upstream of IP production, online literature business has been highly valued by large Internet companies in the past year. Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba have set up their own online literature departments. Qidian, Zongheng Chinese Network, Shuqi Novel Network and other established online literature websites have been integrated into their newly established online entertainment groups. The new network literature group that has completed the integration actively cooperates with film and television and game companies by taking advantage of its own resources, which greatly increases the form and efficiency of IP secondary development. With the general trend of significant revenue growth in the film and game industry in 2015, the commercial value of high-quality online literature works will gain more opportunities in the future.
4.3 Network video
By December 2015, the number of online video users in China reached 504 million, an increase of 70.93 million compared with the end of 2014, and the utilization rate of online video users was 73.2%, an increase of 6.5 percentage points compared with the end of 2014. Among them, the number of mobile video users was 405 million, an increase of 92.28 million compared with the end of 2014, with a growth rate of 29.5%. The mobile phone network video usage rate was 65.4%, an increase of 9.2 percentage points compared with the end of 2014.
In 2015, the online video industry still failed to get rid of the demand for capital and traffic, and the Matthew effect became more and more prominent. The situation of iQiyi, Youku Tudou and Tencent Video leading was basically established, and the gap with other video websites gradually widened. Overall, the development of online video industry this year mainly presents the following two characteristics:
First, the user-paid services of major video websites have increased significantly, and the income structure is healthier. With the continuous growth of the network video user base, the strengthening of the crackdown on piracy and chain theft by relevant state departments, the popularity of online payment, especially mobile payment, and the promotion of IP(Intellectual Property) drama, the user payment market has changed from the previous quantitative accumulation to the qualitative change stage. In 2015, the number of new paid users of major video websites exceeded the previous accumulation, and the proportion of paid income of users in the overall income increased, which is expected to become an important source of income for video websites in the future.
Second, large-scale video websites have strengthened their ecological layout and built a video industry ecosystem. On the hardware equipment, video websites set foot in the manufacturing of mobile phones, televisions, boxes and other video viewing hardware equipment and the development of VR (virtual reality) equipment to seize the hardware entrance; In the marketing mode, test the water "video e-commerce", realize shopping while watching, and at the same time launch the mall business, bring users a one-stop shopping experience, and tap the e-commerce value and content derivative value of video; In terms of industrial layout, on the one hand, film and television companies were set up to enter the Internet film industry and extend to the upstream content production industry chain; on the other hand, the development of online dramas was increased, and based on high-quality content, it was deeply linked with the literature, games and animation sectors in the pan-entertainment industry chain, realizing high-quality content and promoting it with each other on a large cultural and entertainment platform to maximize the value of content.
4.4 Network Music
As of December 2015, the number of online music users reached 501 million, an increase of 23.3 million compared with the end of 2014, accounting for 72.8% of the total netizens. Among them, the number of mobile phone network music users reached 416 million, an increase of 49.97 million compared with the end of 2014, accounting for 67.2% of mobile phone netizens.
In 2015, the copyright issue of online music was highly valued by the relevant government departments, and the special rectification actions launched subsequently directly promoted the regularization process of the online music industry, and the copyright issue of online music that has plagued practitioners for many years has finally improved. As an important part of Internet content industry, online music has developed rapidly with the rise of streaming music business in the era of mobile Internet.
Although the scale of music users on mobile phone network is growing rapidly, the phenomenon that unauthorized pirated music is flooding the network has been hindering the development of the whole industry. To this end, the National Copyright Administration issued the Notice on Ordering Online Music Service Providers to Stop Unauthorized Dissemination of Music Works on July 8, 2015, and launched a special rectification campaign to regulate online music copyright. After standardization and rectification, the copyright problem of online music in China has been obviously improved. Major manufacturers began to cooperate by signing music copyright authorization agreements, and tried to charge users when downloading music involving copyright issues. For the buyers of music copyright, this is an inevitable choice to solve their own copyright dilemma under the background of increasingly strict copyright supervision; For the holder of music copyright, it means that the online music legalization that he has invested a lot of resources to promote is recognized, and the copyright sublicense also provides a profit path for himself. From the industrial chain point of view, the special rectification action of online music copyright in 2015 played a very positive role in establishing a healthy business model and promoting the healthy circulation of copyright in the online music industry, and jointly promoted the development of surrounding industries such as online live broadcast and offline performance.
(E) Development of public service applications
5.1 Online education
As of December 2015, the number of online education users in China (Note 17) reached 110 million, accounting for 16.0% of netizens, of which the number of online education users on mobile phones was 53.03 million, accounting for 8.6% of mobile netizens. The country attaches great importance to the education industry and the application and promotion of new technologies such as cloud computing have promoted the rise and development of online education. Traditional education and training institutions, large-scale Internet enterprises, and vertical entrepreneurial enterprises have all launched the layout of online education. At present, online education in China is still in the early stage of development, and it will take a long time to popularize online education.
According to the different educational contents, online education is mainly divided into nine fields: primary and secondary education (also known as K12 education), vocational examination, vocational skills training, language training, studying abroad, interest education, early childhood education, college/graduate education and comprehensive education. In all fields of online education, primary and secondary education users have the highest utilization rate, accounting for 37.7%. This part of the market has the largest number of users and the strongest demand, and has always been favored by the capital market. Followed by vocational skills training and vocational examination, the user utilization rate is above 20%. With the development of social economy, enterprises will have higher and higher requirements for employees, and the markets in these two fields will have very broad development prospects in the future.
The rise of MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) has promoted the development of online education market. In April 2015, the Ministry of Education issued "Opinions on Strengthening the Application and Management of Online Open Courses in Colleges and Universities", which promoted the construction of large-scale online open courses in China to embark on the benign development path of "university subject, government support and social participation". Under the active guidance of the Ministry of Education, China University MOOC, Tsinghua University Xuetang Online, Shanghai Jiaotong University Good University Online, and various types of large-scale online open course platforms developed by many universities and Internet companies have been launched one after another, which has developed top-level higher education courses in China free of charge and promoted the continuous growth of online education users.
5.2 Internet medical care
As of December 2015, the number of Internet medical users in China was 152 million, accounting for 22.1% of netizens. Compared with other network applications, the usage habits of Internet medical care still need to be cultivated. Among them, the utilization rate of internet medical services in pre-diagnosis links is the highest-the total utilization rate of online medical and health information inquiry, online appointment registration and online consultation is 18.4%; In the fields of medical e-commerce and internet health management, the usage rate accounts for 4.6% and 3.9% of netizens respectively; In the O2O medical and health fields such as chronic disease management, scheduled physical examination and health care, the utilization rate is less than 1%.
At present, the internet medical industry chain has basically taken shape, and its development in the middle and back end is more concentrated and rapid, mainly reflected in the internetization of "medical care" and "drugs". In the medical field, "internet plus" has gradually covered the whole medical process-daily management applications have appeared in health management; In the pre-diagnosis link, online consultation platform, online appointment registration and online consultation service appeared; The intermediate link of diagnosis and treatment is gradually realizing remote consultation and online inquiry of diagnosis and treatment results; In the post-diagnosis chronic disease management, there have been online platforms for doctors and patients, applications for chronic disease management, wearable hardware health equipment, and health care O2O services. In the field of drugs, a closed loop of medical services is formed in the aspects of drug consultation, drug purchase and drug use, including online drug information platform, medical e-commerce and drug O2O, doctor-patient platform and online pharmacy service.
After experiencing the rapid development in the first year of Internet medical care in 2014, Internet medical care is still regarded as a market with great potential in 2015, and all families are stepping up the layout of the Internet medical and health field, thus forming a competitive situation in which large Internet enterprises and startups, pharmaceutical industry chain enterprises, real estate insurance and many other enterprises compete with each other. Large-scale Internet companies quickly build a framework of medical health ecology through capital acquisition, while traditional industry chain participants and startups make full use of their own advantages to cut into vertical segments. Although there is no platform to form a coherent and complete closed loop of Internet medical services, some platforms have initially obtained the scale of users and brand value, and began to extend to many links of the industry, trying to build a medical ecosystem.
5.3 Internet car rental
In the first half of 2015, the number of online taxi booking users was the largest in the online car rental market, accounting for 96.64 million, accounting for 84.8% of the user groups using various car rental service software. There are 21.65 million users who book car online, accounting for 19.0% of the users who use various car-calling service software.
Internet-based booking of taxis improves the quality and efficiency of taxi service, which not only alleviates the difficulty for users to take taxis, but also meets the needs of users for high-quality personalized service. According to CNNIC survey data, 84.4% of online taxi booking users will use taxi calling software when they can’t get a taxi on the roadside. 77.6% users use the internet to book taxis when they are unfamiliar with the surrounding places; 67.2% of users have alleviated the difficulty of taking a taxi in bad weather because of the use of taxi calling software; 65.9% users use taxi calling software when they go to the airport, station or need to reserve a car; There are also 57.1% users who think it is convenient and practical to book a car and rent a car online, and they will use it when they are habitually traveling.
The network booking car service invigorates idle resources and becomes a useful supplement to taxis. Because the number of taxis is strictly controlled, it is difficult to meet people’s growing personalized travel needs, and the special car has made up for the market gap with convenient, refined and quality services, and the user scale has expanded rapidly. Judging from the frequency of users’ use, the frequency of occasional use of special cars is high. Users who occasionally use private cars are the mainstream, accounting for 52.6% of the whole market. From the user’s demand motivation, the special car makes up for the lack of market capacity. The vast majority of users will only use the car service when they can’t get a taxi, accounting for 55.1%; Only 23.3% of users usually use private cars when traveling.
Notes:
11. Travel booking: In this report, travel booking is defined as booking air tickets, hotels, train tickets or travel and holiday products online in the last six months.
12. Social applications: Social applications in this report only include social networking sites, Weibo and vertical social applications. The users of instant messaging tools are large, and they are presented separately as typical applications, which are not included in social applications.
13. Deep Web and Dark Web refer to the parts of the Internet that cannot be indexed by traditional search engines.
14. Social applications in this report only include social networking sites, Weibo and vertical social applications. The users of instant messaging tools are large, and they are presented separately as typical applications, which are not included in social applications.
15. Online current wealth management products refer to Yu ‘ebao wealth management products issued by Internet companies or banks and can only be purchased through Internet channels. These products have the characteristics of high income, low threshold and high liquidity.
16. Online regular wealth management products refer to wealth management products with regular characteristics purchased through Internet channels, but do not include wealth management products sold on bank websites, closed-end funds and other wealth management products.
17. Online education refers to an educational form that relies on information technologies such as cloud computing, big data mining and multimedia, and takes the Internet as the carrier for learning and teaching. Compared with traditional education, online education can break through the time and space constraints, lower the educational threshold, provide users with rich learning content and meet people’s different learning needs.
18、Online car rental refers to the online booking taxi service, which refers to the business activities of building a service platform based on Internet technology, accessing qualified vehicles and drivers, and providing non-cruise booking taxi service by integrating supply and demand information. The main types of online car rental include: online car rental and online car rental.
