This year, the mobile phone social networking population of China will surpass the total population of the US, climbing 11.6% to reach 335.9 million, according to eMarketer’s latest estimates of mobile internet usage and activities around the world.
Double-digit growth in the number of people in the country who use a mobile phone to conduct social networking activities at least monthly will continue through 2017, we estimate, with the total number of users expected to reach 480.4 million by 2019, the end of our forecast period.
This year, 83.0% of all social network users in China, and 32.5% of mobile phone users, will use their devices for social networking at least monthly. That translates to just under a quarter of the total population in China?but still adds up to a market bigger than the entire US and accounts for 21.4% of all mobile phone social network users in the world.
Penetration is a bit higher as a percentage of China’s mobile phone internet user population, at 57.0% this year. But that still puts China at the bottom of eMarketer’s list of countries broken out by this metric. In Indonesia, which leads that list, 94.4% of mobile phone internet users will be mobile phone social network users this year.
With Facebook and Twitter banned in China, the country’s mobile social network audience is missing out on two of the world’s most popular platforms. Homegrown alternatives are extremely popular, however.
eMarketer bases all of its forecasts on a multipronged approach that focuses on both worldwide and local trends in the economy, technology and population, along with company-, product-, country- and demographic-specific trends, and trends in specific consumer behaviors. We analyze quantitative and qualitative data from a variety of research firms, government agencies, media outlets and company reports, weighting each piece of information based on methodology and soundness.
In addition, every element of each eMarketer forecast fits within the larger matrix of all its forecasts, with the same assumptions and general framework used to project figures in a wide variety of areas. Regular re-evaluation of each forecast means those assumptions and framework are constantly updated to reflect new market developments and other trends.
