Adults in China will spend 6 hours and 23 minutes on media every day in 2018, up 11 minutes from 2017. Nearly half (47.1%) of media time, or 3 hours, will go to internet activities, an increase of 19 minutes from 2 hours and 41 minutes in 2017.
Time spent on the internet in China is estimated to account for 50% of total media time by next year, according to eMarketer.
Over 70% of daily internet time in 2018 will be spent on mobile devices compared with 21% on desktops/laptops and 9% on other non-mobile devices such as connected TVs.
Blockbuster global events, such as the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and FIFA World Cup in Russia, attract large audiences to the TV. However, time spent on TV among adults in China will decline by 3 minutes this year, as part of the attention shift to digital.
Though TV penetration will still remain the highest of all media at 93.5% of the adult population in 2018, compared with 64.0% for the internet. In 2018, adults in China will spend more time with mobile devices than watching TV for the first time.
Adults in China set to spend 2 hours and 39 minutes per day on mobile devices, an increase of 11.1% from 2017, accounting for 41.6% of their daily time spent on media. In contrast, time spent on watching TV estimated 2 hours and 32 minutes, down 2% from 2017, taking 39.8% share of the total.
The popularity of online video drives Chinese consumers to spend more time on mobile devices. In 2018, adults in China are expected to spend 58 minutes watching online video every day, up 26% year-on-year, accounting for over 25% of their total digital time, by 2020, this share will rise to 33%.
Check out the top mobile apps in China in Q1 2018 here.