UMENG Insight Report - China Mobile Internet 2012 Review

03/2013

The exponential growth of the mobile Internet industry during 2012 resulted in a total of 245 million active users, with monthly app sessions increasing by more than 16 times and monthly app session length growing by a factor of 12.

In 2012, the average total time and frequency a user spent using apps increased in all app categories. For instance, the average time spent daily on video apps had grown 259%. Users watched more videos for longer on their mobile devices.

Social networking became a key element in mobile apps. Apps that allowed for sharing on social media had users that were more “sticky” and at least 3 times more active.

Males preferred music, video, adventure and board games while women enjoyed photo management, e-commerce and casual games.

Users loved to share information on social media late at night with a peak close to midnight. Content was shared at the same rate by both males and females.

While the release of iOS 6.1 saw an increase in the number of jailbroken phones, in general there was still a reduction in the proportion of jailbroken devices compared with the previous year.

Chinese users were slow to upgrade their operating systems compared to their non-Chinese counterparts, mainly due to the higher percentage of iOS jailbroken phones and the fact that the newest Android version was not released across all platforms.

*Devices refer to active devices covered by UMENG platform that has activated at least one app session within the stipulated time frame.

Main Findings

Big Data Era Shaping Users Lifestyle 1

At the start of the 2012 the number of new Android and iOS activations was 9.2 million a month. This has grown rapidly, particularly in the last half of the year to a staggering 33 million new activations a month by year end. Annotation: new activated iOS devices, new activated Android devices

0

500

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1500

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3000

3500

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

New device activations by month in

2012

iOS Android

Data Source: Umeng Analytics Platform

Rapid growth of China’s mobile Internet market

The number of mobile app sessions in December 2012 was 16 times that of January 2012, while app session length was 12 times that of January 2012. Smart phone use has become ingrained into our daily lives.

2 X

7 X

16 X

Jan Apr Jul Dec

Monthly app sessions increased

every quarter in 2012

Data Source: Umeng Analytics Platform Data Source: Umeng Analytics Platform

3 X

6 X

12 X

Jan Apr Jul Dec

Monthly app session length

increased every quarter in 2012

Mobile app usage frequency rose 16 times, app session length grew 12 times

More Chinese app developers were choosing to take on the international market. In 2012, the number of overseas users rose by 720%. Incredibly, it even surpassed the number of Mainland clients in November 2012.


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2000

4000

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12000

14000

2012Q1 2012Q2 2012Q3 2012Q4

Growth in new overseas devices every

quarter in 2012

iOS Android

Rapid rise of Chinese app developers venturing into international market

Mobile App Users Behavior 2

In 2012, users were increasingly reliant on their apps, with escalation of total time spent and higher app frequency rates for every app category. The most extraordinary growth was in video apps, with 24% increase in app usage frequency rates and average time spent daily grew by 259% from 9 minutes to an astonishing 31 minutes. Users were getting used to watching longer videos on their mobile devices.

The user frequency rate of system tools apps had gone down by 21% as more of such apps got integrated into the phone at the manufacturer stage as the featured app. This allowed more users to view content related products. One interesting trend observed was the growth in user frequency rates of reading apps by 114%, and yet the session length dropped by 6%, implying that mobile users preferred to view shorter content.

-300%

-200%

-100%

0%

100%

200%

300%

-150% -50% 50% 150%

ap

p s

ess

ion

len

gth

per

use

r p

er

day

app usage frequency per user per day

Main category user behavior change

video

system tool

game

photo management

reading


The amount of time an individual user spent on a video app grew by 259%

There was no gender split on iOS system, while there were more males using Android at 55.3%.

Different sexes had distinctive preferences over different apps such as games, e-commerce, video, entertainment, music and photo management. 68% - 75% of users using e-commerce apps were females while photo management apps had around 60% of its users being females. On the other hand, music and video apps were more attractive to male users.


Android e-commerce iOS e-commerce

Android video iOS video

Android photo iOS photo

Android music iOS music

Android games iOS games

Android entertainment iOS entertainment

Male-Female ratio by app category

Male Female

50%

Male 55.3%

Female 44.7%

Android user distribution by gender

Male 50.1%

Female 49.9%

iOS user distribution by gender

Women preferred photo management and e-commerce apps

In games, no matter which game category, there were observed preferences between genders. More males play adventure, board and card games, reaching 70% in these apps. On the other hand, 66% of the casual and trivia game players were females.

In addition, up to 65% of the educational, family and kids game apps were made up of females. Hence we deduced that children normally used their moms’ mobile devices. Mothers played a larger role in entertaining their kids in the family.


Casual&Trivia

Educational&Family

Puzzle

Board&Card

Racing&Sports&Music

Simulation

Role Playing

Strategy

Action&Arcade

Adventure

User preference for game apps (by gender)

Male Female

50%

Males favored adventure and card games while the ladies preferred casual games

The peak timings when users shared their app contents to social network were between lunch break 12-2pm and after 12 midnight.

In addition, there were 2 groups of users who routinely shared app content. The professional typically shared during work hours (9am and 2pm) and 8pm after dinner, while the students shared after lunch at 1pm and after school between 6-8pm.


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24 hr distribution trend of

app content sharing on

social networks

Uses most social in bed! Midnight peak in app content sharing on social networks

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Different user groups share

at different timings

Professional Student

Normally, users with social media sharing habits are very active app users; these users typically accessed their apps 3.5 times more often and used those apps 3.8 times longer compared to users who do not engage in social media sharing. Thus developers should provide more engaging services that participate in social media sharing increase app usage.


3.5X

users without social

media sharing habits

users with social media

sharing habits

Daily average app usage

frequency per user

3.8X

users without social

media sharing habits

users with social media

sharing habits

Daily average time spent

on app per user

Users who shared content to other users within the apps were more engaged and active

Smart device trends in 2012 3

Among the iOS devices, iPhone distribution hovered between 74% to 82%, reaching its highest at 82% when iPhone 5 launched in September 2012.

iPad distribution peaked in December 2012, with market share of 23% amongst the iOS devices. This was probably due to the official launch of iPad 4 and iPad Mini in China during then, drawing more sales of the iPad.

0%

20%

40%

60%

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100%

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

iOS device distribution in 2012

iPad iPod iPhone


Distribution of iOS devices in 2012

After iPad Mini and iPad 4 were officially launched in China, the market share of iPad Mini increased by 4% in Q4 2012 to reach 83% share.

The launch of the two new iPads had impacted upon the sales of the Android tablets, expanding the market share of iPad.


82%

1%

17%

Tablet distribution (2012 Q4)

iPad

iPad Mini

Android

Tablet

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Oct 2012 Nov 2012 Dec 2012

Tablet distribution by month

iPad Mini iPad Android Tablet

iPad is dominate tablet market in China

Even though Samsung and HTC were leading the Android device brands, their market share had fallen from 53% in 2011 to 32%. Despite having the highest global sales, Samsung still faced much competition from local Chinese brands. The rise of Lenovo, Coolpad, Xiaomi, OPPO and many local brands, coupled with many other smaller Android brands, had caused the Android market to become more dynamic. Consumers were literally spoilt for choices in 2012.


21%

11%

7%

7% 5% 5%

5%

4% 4%

3%

28%

Android brand distribution 2012 Q4

Samsung

HTC

Lenovo

Huawei

ZTE

Coolpad

Xiaomi

Motorola

Sony Xperia

OPPO

Others

28%

25% 12%

9%

8%

6%

3% 3%

2% 1% 3%

Android brand distribution 2011 Q3

Samsung

HTC

Motorola

Huawei

ZTE

Sony Xperia

Lenovo

LG

Meizu

Coolpad

Others

Android brand choices in China had become more dynamic

In 2012 Q4, there were 3 Lenovo and 4 Samsung tablets in the top 10 ranking. Lenovo and Samsung were the top brands in China’s Android tablet market.

Samsung Galaxy Tab, Lenovo Pad A1, Ainol Novo 7 Advanced and Telcast P76 were already in the top 20 Android tablet list in 2011 and all through the year of 2012. This showed the continued popularity of these 4 models. Even though there were many Android tablet models in the market, only a few truly and continually attracted users. Umeng looks forward to newer Android products that would provide delightful user experiences.


3.7%

4.1%

4.2%

4.2%

5.3%

5.7%

5.8%

5.9%

6.7%

8.6%

Telcast P76

Samsung GT-P6200

EBEN T6

Lenovo Pad2207

Ainol novo7Advanced

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

Samsung Galaxy Tab

Samsung GT-P3100

Lenovo IdeaPad A1

IdeaTab A2107A-H

Top 10 Android models of 2012

Top 10 Android tablets in 2012 Q4

Released in September 2012, iOS 6.0 quickly expanded its market share to reach 52% by January 2013.

Android also released its newest version in 2012. The new Android 4.0 reached 34% by January 2013 and Android 4.1 had increased to 6%.


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Jul 2012

Aug 2012

Sep 2012

Oct 2012

Nov 2012

Dec 2012

Jan 2013

Distribution of iOS version

6.0 5.1 5.0 others

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20%

40%

60%

80%

Jul 2012

Aug 2012

Sep 2012

Oct 2012

Nov 2012

Dec 2012

Jan 2013

Distribution of Android version

4.1 4.0 2.3 2.2 others

New iOS and Android versions expanded their market share

Overseas iOS users upgraded their systems faster than Chinese users. In Dec 2012, when 43.4% of China’s iOS users had upgraded, 68.3% of their overseas counterparts had already upgraded. A large influence on this trend is the higher number of jailbroken phones in China.

Chinese users are also slower than overseas consumers to upgrade Android OS. For instance 54.8% of Chinese users are still using Android 2.3 as compared to only 48.8% of the overseas users. This was probably due to the fragmented nature of the local market, the large number of smaller local manufactures and the slower role out of new OS across their handset portfolio.

54.8% 48.8%

30.0% 33.3%

7.9% 7.1% 3.6% 7.3%

2.3% 1.4% 1.5% 2.1%

CN Oversea

Android version distribution (Dec 2012)

2.3 4.0 2.2 4.1 2.1 others

43.4%

68.3%

36.5%

21.1% 10.9%

4.7% 9.2% 6.0%

CN Oversea

iOS version distribution (Dec 2012)

6.0 5.1 5.0 others


China users were slower to upgrade their operating systems compared to their overseas counterparts

5th February 2013, the iOS 6.1 jailbreak solution was announced. Before this, the percentage of jailbroken handsets in China had already dropped to 27.3% but it increased by 5% again to reach 32.3% on 16th February 2013. This rate was still 10% lower than that in September 2012.

According to trend observed in the past after jailbreak solutions were released, there would be a slow increase in the percentage of jailbroken phones, but in general, there was still an improvement in the acceptance towards non-jailbroken devices, causing a drop in overall percentage of jailbroken handsets.

27.3%

32.3%

24.0%

27.0%

30.0%

33.0%

iOS jailbreak trend (1st – 16th Feb 2013)

5th Feb, iOS 6.1 jailbreak solution launched


0%

10%

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30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Dec Jan Feb

Jailbroken rates for each iOS version

Non-jailbroken

Other jailbroken version

6.x jailbroken

5.x jailbroken

fall in the percentage of Jailbroken

Definition of terms:

Devices: All devices in this report refer to active devices covered by Umeng platform that has activated at least one app session within the stipulated time frame.

Release Date:

Mar 2013

Data Source:

Analysis data based on over 100,000 Android and iOS apps from Umeng platform. Data is taken in the entire period of year 2012.

Statement:

Above data belong to Umeng platform. Any use of data can be used for free provided that Umeng is quoted as the original source.

Contact us : [email protected]

About this report

Umeng Analytics

Umeng App Analytics Platform is the leading and largest provider of mobile app analytics and developer services in China. We help app developers to analyse user behaviour, enabling them to stategize to efficiently distribute and promote their apps. Umeng covers more than 100,000 apps across iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Windows 8 platforms.

UMtrack

The lack of an official iOS apps channel analytics tool that is easy to use and provide accurate data is a constant challenge for iOS app developers. Umeng’s Umtrack provides developers with accurate analysis of users, helping app developers track their users whom have come from different channels.

App network

App network is a total solution for app developers that integrates in-house ads, cross-promotion and advertising. It delivers efficient distribution for apps and helps apps to maximise inventory value, growing the size and value of app users.

UMENG Product Overview

Umeng, a Beijing-based startup founded in April 2010, offers enterprise-class analytics, App Network and Social network plugin to over 100,000 apps across iOS, Android, Windows Phone platforms. Umeng has since raised more than USD10 million from Matrix Partners and Innovation Works.

The team is working around the clock to build better solutions for mobile app developers.

www.umeng.com

weibo.com/umengcom

[email protected]

UMENG Insight Report - China Mobile Internet 2012 Review

Technology

app categories

number of mobile app

mobile devices

monthly app sessions

monthly app session

chinese users

mobile app usage frequency

mobile apps