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China technology
AbacusTech

The top 10 takeaways from the China Internet Report 2020

  • US-China trade tensions and the Covid-19 pandemic are reshaping China’s internet landscape
  • 5G adoption and self-driving tech have also seen significant gains

Reading Time:4 minutes
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E-commerce is now a major driver of live streaming growth. Photo: Xinhua
Xinmei Shen
China’s technology scene has been in for a wild ride over the last year. From the US-China tech war to the Covid-19 pandemic, the landscape has been changing fast. The South China Morning Post’s third China Internet Report is an annual look at the state of the country’s tech industries. Here are the biggest takeaways from the report:

1) People are spending more time online during the pandemic

As in many other places around the world, China has seen a surge in internet usage and online media consumption during the Covid-19 pandemic. As of March of this year, Chinese internet users were spending an average of 7.2 hours online every day, sharply up from 5.6 hours a day in the previous year.

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The pandemic has also been bringing more people online in the country, as more work and services need to be accessed remotely. People above 40 years old were the primary drivers of that growth.

A resident scans a QR health code in February at the entrance of a supermarket in Zhengzhou, a city in central China's Henan province. Photo: Xinhua
A resident scans a QR health code in February at the entrance of a supermarket in Zhengzhou, a city in central China's Henan province. Photo: Xinhua
The pandemic also led to new technology applications to help fight the spread of Covid-19. Most notably, colour-coded QR health codes meant to signal who might have had contact with the virus were widely adopted. These and other applications could remain in place even after the pandemic subsides.

2) Office apps boom as millions work from home

With so many people stuck working from home during the pandemic, the use of office apps has jumped. While Zoom was the big winner in the US, workers in China largely turned to Alibaba’s DingTalk, Tencent’s WeChat Work and Tencent Meeting. Work productivity apps gained more than 308 million users during this period, nearly equal to the population of United States.

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