By Jo Best, 19 January 2005 16:40
NEWS China is fast shaping up to be one of tech's tigers with a booming internet population. Now it seems the next generation of Chinese web surfers are more than happy to get their wallets out and are even shunning TV in favour of getting their news online.
According to a report from digital consultancy Panlogic, 100 million internet users are now online and willing to spend - two-thirds of Chinese internet users are expected to buy online this year.
Despite the massive numbers already online, the internet snowball has only just started to move for the Chinese.
Panlogic CEO William Makower said in coming years, the number of internet users could grow at an even greater rate. "You'll never get 50 per cent [online] but you could get 30 per cent... I expect it to be 500 million at some point within the next three years," he said. "It's very significant."
Even with four or five per cent of the population online, the number of Chinese users would outstrip that in the US.
And those numbers could see the emergence of an ecommerce culture in the country. "Ecommerce isn't massive yet. It will become so when credit cards become more prevalent," Makower said.
The report also found that the vast majority - some 90 per cent - of surfers were under 40 and also tended to be both urban and affluent.
It's a market that Chinese TV doesn't appear to be catering for, with web surfers ditching primetime TV to use the internet, with 48 per cent looking for news and information and 33 per cent using the net for entertainment.
While most Western surfers use the internet while at work, the Chinese tend to surf outside office hours and state TV isn't proving enough of a draw to keep them glued to the TV after work.
"State telly is quite dry. When they're looking for current news, current comment... they turn to the internet," Makower said.
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