Digital Comparison Between the United States and China

With 800m people online, China’s internet penetration is still just over 50% (based on a population of 1.4B). By comparison, the US is above 80% penetration as of 2018, and totals 292 million users. It’s interesting to note that China’s urban population is 800 million people, which is a near-exact match for its current internet population at 802 million netizens.

Brands looking for the next wave of digital growth in China are grappling with a number of difficult questions. While China’s internet penetration continues to creep forward, approaching one billion, marketers are turning more attention to lower-tier cities to connect with new consumers. Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities in the represent (in some cases) fresh opportunities to scale up.

There’s almost complete overlap between China’s internet population and its mobile penetration, as most of its 800m Netizens are online via mobile. In the US, more than 20% of internet users are still desktop-only users.

Where things really get interesting is with mobile payments. CNNIC data from China shows 527m mobile payment users (WeChat Pay claims 800mregistered users). In the US, there are only 48m mobile payment users.

Smart companies will start targeting specific city/clusters to concentrate growth efforts - to gain a healthy share in a smaller geography - and then use that momentum as a base for broader expansion.

Each city/regional cluster also represents unique cultural dynamics. National advertisers will therefore usually have 3-4 ‘cluster concepts in motion concurrently.