The Next Web

Fast growing ad, gaming & education market in China

Written on July 21, 2008 – 8:22 am
Joop Dorresteijn, Contributing editor

The New Media Media group in China, photo by Marc van der Chijs

A delegation of 40 Dutch entrepreneurs and investors visited China last April, they visited marketing offices, gaming companies, multinationals and telecom companies in Shanghai and Chengdu and got their eyes opened to the dynamics and potentials in China. Some participants wrote down their interesting experiences and lessons, and published them in a 76 pages counting document (Dutch) a few days ago. Here are some of the highlights in English.

A profile of the Chinese web

Dorrit Gruijters mentiones that there are 1.3 billion people living in China, and only 210 million from them had an Internet connection in 2007. CCNIC reports expectations of increase to 280 million users by the end of 2008, an indication that the Chinese market is coming up strong. Currently, about 75 million Internet users are posting actively on bulletin boards, and China counts 50 million bloggers. The average Chinese person spends about 17 hours per week on the web.

Opportunities for online advertising

Chinese are still hesitant to pay online and E-commerce in China –with a turnover of about 1 billion euros– is just beginning, says Marco Derksen. You still pay a fixed price for advertisements in China, while the western advertising world works with CPM, CPC and CPL and viral marketing is almost non-existent. Although, online advertising expenditures are expected to increase about 50% in 2008. Derksen concludes that the Chinese advertising market is growing and maturing quickly, leaving opportunities for viral and search engine marketeers.

Online gaming free and moving to mobile

Marc van der Chijs mentions that next to the Internet, the online gaming industry is also growing quickly. Last year the amount of gamers on the Chinese Internet has raised from 48 to 59 million people. Especially the Massive Multiplayer Online games are very popular. A trend in the online gaming industry is the movement from pay-to-play to free-to-play, a situation where revenue is created with in-game items. Yuri van Geest mentions that the China is the biggest mobile market of the world, not so wierd that mobile games are increasing popularity and with 550 million users, expectations are high.

Rapid developments in online education

China will develop itself rapid in online education, says Jan Kees Meindersma. New initiatives include Bluetooth push services for educational data at the Shanghai University and online learning games for the younger generation. But most interesting is the OpenCourseWare Consortium, seeking to expand the amount and quality of online study material on the web. Currently, 10% of academic universities attent, and the TU Delft and the Open University are participating.

I hope you like that post!

The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our 'About' page and subscribe to our RSS feed.

Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!

china, new media group, trends