According to iResearch, China internet advertising total revenue reached 51.19 billion yuan (USD 8.11 billion) in 2011, up 57.3% from 2010 and exceeding total newspaper print ad revenue by 45.36 billion yuan.

iResearch forecasts total internet advertising revenue would exceed 100 billion yuan next year (2013).

Also read:: China Online Advertising Summary in Q1 2010

As you can see in the above search trend graph, car rental business is taking off in China. 

Top 10 Car Rental Websites by Visits

Top 10 Car Rental Websites by Visits Marketshare

According to data released by Hitwise, the top 10 car rental websites in China by visits are:

1. eHI Car Service
2. Zuche.com
3. AVIS China
4. Yongche.com
5. Top1.cn
6. Motorent.cn
7. zuche.17u.cn
8. Reocar.com
9. Hertzchina.com
10. Wodingche.com

eHI Car Services websites is leading the online car rental business in China according to Hitwise; but, I doubt it considering Shenzhou Car Rental (zuche.com) is much more popular according to Baidu search trend data:

AVIS is doing better than Hertz with a more localized website and a Chinese brand name.

Also read:: Market Share of China Microblogging Websites in Q1 2011

Email Deliverability in H1 2011

Email deliverability in China is much worse than the global average; only 58% of all emails can reach users’ inbox, which is also much lower than the average in Asia Pacific region (78%) according to data shown in a recent ReturnPath report.

Also read:: Total China Personal Email Users 2008-2014e

Top Web Verticals by Total Number of Unique Visitors

Online portals like Sohu.com and Sina.com.cn still receive the most web traffic in terms of the number of unique visitors.

Also read:: Alexa Launched its China Website

ICBC via Wikipedia

The Hurun Research Institute this June released the Hurun Most Valuable Home-grown Brands List 2011, a comprehensive ranking of the 100 most valuable home grown brands from mainland China.

Unique in China, the Hurun Most Valuable Home-grown Brands List 2011 draws upon both relevant economic data and consumer survey results to come to a comprehensive assessment of brand value.

ICBC is China’s most valuable home-grown brand, worth US$43.5 billion. Baidu is China’s most valuable privately-owned brand, worth US$24.4 billion. China Mobile, the largest telecommunications company in the world, falls to second place with a brand value of US$42.2Bn. China Construction Bank, one of six financial institutions in the Top 10 is third, valued at US$35.9Bn.

Top 10 Most Valuable Home-grown Brands in China

1. ICBC
2. China Mobile
3. CCB
4. Baidu
5. Bank of China
6. China Life (insurance)
7. Tencent QQ
8. Agricultural Bank Of China
9. PingAn (insurance)
10. Maotai (alcohol)

Find out more at Hurun.net

Also read:: Top 50 Most Valuable Chinese Brands

High schoolers in Palo Alto, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley, spend significantly more time using digital media every day than their peers at leading high schools in the Chinese capital. However, Chinese students sometimes outpace their American counterparts in embracing the latest internet technologies and building a network of online friends they have never met in person.

A new study from Stanford University provides some clues on who is more digitally switched on – high school students in Silicon Valley or Beijing.

Stanford Graduate School of Business looked into the digital lives of teens between the ages of 16 and 18 in Silicon Valley and Beijing by surveying 71 high schoolers, 44 from Palo Alto and 27 from Beijing. The students were asked about their usage of different types of consumer electronics and communications, including how much time they spent daily on a range of online activities.

While the California teens spent significantly more time than their Beijing peers using social networking sites and blogging, Beijing students spent considerably more time watching films and videos over the internet, hardly watching television at all. The Beijing teens were much more likely to have online-only friends, and more of them (44% versus 16%) touted Apple’s iPad tablets than the Palo Alto respondents.

The study suggested the emergence of a “digital tribe” of teens transcending cultures and geographic borders, especially in tech hotspots such as Silicon Valley and Beijing.

Also read:: Chinese Spent More Time Watching Video on Computers & Mobile Than TV

BRIC Women More Ambitious

The proportion of educated women in BRIC countries who reported in a survey that they are “very ambitious” is 59%, 63%, 85% and 65% respectively, compared with 36% in the United States.

The numbers of women who aspire to the top jobs in companies is similarly high in those countries.

Source: Source: Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets

Also read:: 7 Things About Hong Kong Netizens

Total Ad Spending 2010-2015: China V.S. Japan

eMarketer estimates that by the end of this year, ad spending in the China will increase enough to make the country the second-largest advertising market in the world.

Japan’s total media ad spending last year reached $34 billion. But  the effect of the tsunami and continuing economic difficulties will cause ad spending in Japan to drop by 3.7%, to $32.7 billion in 2011.

In contrast, China’s ad spending will increase by 14% to $38.3 billion this year. The US will remain the world’s leading country in terms of total media ad spending, with a projected $157.4 billion in ad dollars this year. However, Chinese total media ad spending will reach $28.68 per person, compared to $258.88 in Japan and $502.49 in the US.

China’s online ad spending will still be lower than that of Japan until 2015 according to eMarketer’s estimate:

Total Online Ad Spend 2010-2015: China V.S. Japan

Also read:: Total China Internet Users Exceeded 500 Million by H1 2011

China Internet Market Revenue 2010-2011Q2

In the second quarter of 2011, China Internet market reached 62.2 billion yuan, up 19.0% compared to the first quarter with year on year increase of 77.5%.

China Internet Market Breakdown: 2010-2011Q2

Also read:: Charts: China 2011 Q2 Search Engine Market Update

Total China Internet Users By June 2011

According to DCCI’s latest data, the total number of China Internet users reached 508 million by the first half of 2011. They also estimated that it will reach 551 million this year.

Portal websites are still the number one most visited category, followed by search engines and emails. We will share more by next week. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter or RSS to keep posted.

Also read:: China Internet Users Reached 404 Million

China Personal Email Users 2008-2014e

According to iResearch’s recent report, There were 259 million personal email users, up 18.8%. This means over half (56.7%) of China Internet users use personal emails.

From my personal experience, emails are not a popular way for personal communications in China, compared to QQ/MSN instant messaging and Weibo. However, many services require email addresses at registration, total number of individual email accounts will likely keep growing.

Also read:: Email Deliverability: China v.s. Worldwide v.s. APAC

A recent comScore study reveals that portals commanded the largest share of online minutes, accounting for 24.4% of total time in Greater China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong), followed by the Entertainment (9%), Search/Navigation (6.2%), Social Networking (5.5%) and Retail (5%)site categories.

These five categories combined accounted for half of all time spent online in Greater China during April.

Tencent is the leading portal reaching 64.4% Internet users. Youku led as the largest Entertainment site reaching 19.2% of online users, while Baidu.com ranked as the largest Search/Navigation property reaching 59.4% of web users.

Oak Pacific Interactive Sites (who owns Renren.com, mop.com, uume.com, donews.com and etc.) led as the most-visited Social Networking destination in Greater China reaching 17.8% of unique visitors, while Alibaba held the number one spot among Retail destinations reaching 36.5% of visitors.

Also read:: China social networking sites statistics 2009 (updated)

Chinese households are earning more but saving less, according to Credit Suisse.

Based on the Bank’s latest proprietary China Consumer Survey, household income of the bottom 20% of those surveyed has risen by 50% since 2004, while the top 10% has grown 255% to around RMB34,000 per month.

The savings rate has dropped from 26% to 12% during the same period. Credit Suisse expects China’s share of global consumption to increase from 5.2% at US$1.72 trillion in 2009 to 23.1% at US$15.94 trillion in 2020, overtaking the US as the largest consumer market in the world.

6 observations from credit suisse survey

1. The rich have become richer
2. The poor and the middle classes are still much better off
3. Chinese are saving less
4. There are more people living in rented property and property bought in the market, while the percentages of inherited and employer allocated housing have declined
5. Car ownership is rising
6. Consumer confidence in domestic brands is generally rising.

Also read:: Chinese Consumer Social Technographics Profile

China will have an urban population of 1 billion by 2030 according to McKinsey forecast & UN data (2009-2010).

Also by 2030, China will have 221 cities with more than 1 million people. During this period, 400 million Chinese will move to urban areas, more than the population of the US and Brazil combined. (Source: Foreign Policy, August 2010.)

China’s Academy of Sciences estimated that for every 1% increase in urbanization, China can expect a 1.6% increase in the contribution made by domestic demand to China’s GDP.

Also read:: The Aging of Chinese Population Presents Marketing Challenges

According to CNNIC latest report this January, China’s total Internet users has reached 457 million, up 19.1% compared to 2009. Internet penetration rate (34.3%) is still low in China but higher than the world average.

China’s total broadband users are 450 million, up 30%! Broadband penetration rate is 98.3% but the average Internet connection speed in China is only 100.9KB/s, far below the world average which is 230.4KB/s.

66% of China’s Internet users access Internet through mobile phones. On average, China internet users spend 18.3 hours per week on internet access; or, 2.6 hours per day. Find out more from the slides below:

Also read:: China Internet Statistics Whitepaper

China’s Internet penetration rate (IPR) is 34.3%, higher than the world Internet penetration rate. Provinces with IPR higher than 34.3% can be classified as Tier 1.

According to the Internet World Stats, world wide Internet users reached almost 2 billion by 30th June ’10. There were about 1,966,514,816 online users with a penetration rate of 28.7%. China provinces with IPR between 28.7% and 34.3% are Tier 2 provinces. Those lower than the world average are in tier 3.

Tier 1 Provinces

1. Beijing
2. Shanghai
3. Guangdong
4. Zhejiang
5. Tianjin
6. Fujian
7. Liaoning
8. Jiangsu
9. Xinjiang
10. Shanxi
11. Shandong
12. Hainan
13. Chongqing
14. Shaanxi

Tier 2 Provinces

1. Qinghai
2. Hubei
3. Jilin
4. Hebei
5. Inner Mongolia
6. Heilongjiang

Tier 3

1. Ningxia
2. Xizang
3. Hunan
4. Henan
5. Guangxi
6. Gansu
7. Sichuan
8. Anhui
9. Yunnan
10. Jiangxi
11. Guizhou

Also read:: China Online Shopping Statistics 2009 Part 1 – Penetration Rate by City

About 2.556 billion passenger trips are expected to be taken during this year’s Spring Festival travel rush, up 11.6 percent year on year, said the Ministry of Transport on Monday.

Passenger trips by water will rise about 6% and those on flights about 10.8%, according to the country’s transport authorities.

Previous data shows passenger journeys totaled 1.66 billion during the Spring Festival travel period in 2001, 1.9 billion in 2005 and 2.2 billion in 2010.

The ministry estimates that 640 million people will return home for Spring Festival which falls on Feb. 3 this year. The festival travel season this year starts on Jan. 19 and ends Feb. 27 (40 days). Got your travel campaign launched already?

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Also read:: Online Travel still Strong in China: short haul trips most popular

China remained as the world’s biggest auto market last year after it overtook the United States in 2009 to become the world’s largest after it sold 13.64 million units.

China’s 2010 auto sales up 32 percent to hit 18.06 million units, according to China Association of Automobile Manufactures (CAAM).

China’s car output topped 18.26 million last year, an annual increase of 32.44 percent, said Zhu Yiping, associate secretary-general of the CAAM at a press conference.

Both figures underpinned China’s position as the world’s biggest car producer and market, Zhu said.

China’s auto sales in December topped 1.67 million, up 17.9 percent year-on-year, but down 1.79 percent month-on-month.

Auto output in December stood at 1.87 million, up 22.3 percent year-on-year or 6.27 percent month-on-month.

Sales of passenger vehicles rose 33.17 percent year-on-year to 13.76 million last year, while sales of commercial vehicles were up 29.9 percent year-on-year to 4.3 million.

The Ministry of Finance said at the end of December that the preferential purchase tax of 7.5 percent for vehicles with engines under 1.6 liters would be raised to 10 percent from beginning of this year.

CAAM sees China’s auto market to grow 10 to 15 percent in 2011.

Source: China Daily

Also read:: China’s Retail Sales Up 16.9% in May

Nielsen’s research reveals that three key factors play a stronger role in explaining China’s high savings rate than the frugality theory:

1. Young Demographics
   Since the late 1980’s, China’s demographics have favored the younger working group, defined by economists as Prime Savers (20-49 years). Typically this group displays a higher propensity to save as it has to finance a variety of life-stage needs.
2. Big Expenses
   A comparative cost index analysis between first jobbers in China and the United States was conducted to get a deeper look at their saving needs and how they are likely to fund these expenses. Taking into account expenses such as weddings, the purchase of a house, children’s education and the purchase of durables, the research shows that Chinese consumers need to save a greater portion of their salary to fund these expenses than their U.S. counterparts.
3. Medical and Post-Retirement Costs
   China’s social security funds are much lower than those in developed economies, representing just 2% of the country’s total household wealth compared to the U.S. level of 20%. Precautionary savings to cover medical and post-retirement expenses remain an important factor in explaining China’s high savings rate.

You can download the full report here (PDF).

Also read:: China Online Shopping Statistics 2009 Part 1 – Penetration Rate by City

DCCI forecasts by 2010 China’s local web sites will reach 318 million, with 67% growth rate.

It’s not hard to tell the growth of China’s local advertising could be surprising to you in the coming two years.

Also read:: Social Network Users in China to Reach 488 Million in 2015