China Digital
China’s Mobile Payments 707% Growth in 2013
The total transaction volume by Chinese independent mobile payments services reached 1219.74 billion yuan (roughly $200bn) in 2013, a 707% year on year increase, according to the latest report by online tracking and data analysis service iResearch. The independent payments that iResearch refers to are all payments services excluding those by conventional banks and China UnionPay, the bankcard association. And ‘payments’ include peer-to-peer money transfers. The major driver of the growth, however, isn’t mobile shopping anymore but online money transfer, credit card payoff and other mobile payment applications. Payments as a percentage through text messages decreased steeply in the past three years, from 92.5% in 2010 to 6.1% in 2013. 93.1% payments were through mobile payments apps or other services in this year. The share of near field payments declined from 2.6% one year ago to 0.8% — NFC, the only mainstream near field technology, isn’t widely adopted in China. But it is expected that other near field payment solutions like Alipay On-site, with QRcode and acoustic payment capability, will drive near field payments in 2014.
Source: Tech Node
China Digital
Internet Speed in China Climbs 14% in 2013
China’s average peak Internet speed reached 737.4KB/S in 2013, up 14% as compared with the beginning of the same year, according to a broadband speed overview released by Xunlei. The peak internet speed for Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan is still higher when compared with that for other regions in Chinese mainland. The connection speed of Shanghai and Beijing reached 1,190.3KB/s and 970.2KB/s, respectively. The development of broadband infrastructure is quite uneven, while peak Internet speed of Xining, a city in North West China, is half that of Shanghai. From regional perspective, there’s little difference between the Internet speed of the North and the South. However, the Internet speed for eastern, middle and western regions shows a descending trend. This trend is highly correlated with the economic development levels of these three areas. Big data download capacity is becoming the rigid demand of users. China’s average download per capital per time reached 113MB, with 16 provincial-level regions exceeded 100MB and five areas surpassed 200 MB. In order to accelerate broadband construction in China, the central government released the “Broadband China” strategic plan last August, targeting full broadband network coverage by 2020. China is also planning to construct seven backbone network nodes in addition to three existing ones in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Source: Tech Node