For years I’ve been hearing how we are losing the broadband battle with China, so I decided to take a look at the current state of broadband in the country. The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) publishes statistics about the state of broadband in the country, and I used the Statistical Report on Internet Development in China from August 2019 in writing this blog.

Here are some of the more interesting statistics about the state of broadband in the country:

• China is a lot larger than the US with a current population just below 1.4 billion, compared to an estimate of US population of around 327 million.
• As of June 2019, China had 854 million people connected to the web in some manner, for an overall Internet penetration based on a population of 61.2%. It’s not easy to compare that statistic to the US since we track Internet usage using subscriptions to households.
• China is still rapidly adding people to the Internet. In the first six months of 2019, the country added 26 million new Internet users.
• The Chinese interface with the Internet in a variety of ways, with the following statistics for June 2019:
  • Cellphone 847 million 99%
  • Desktop 394 million 46%
  • Laptop 308 million 36%
  • TV 283 million 33%
  • Tablet 242 million 28%
• As of June 2019, China had 396 million users on fiber-to-the-home. China is adding fiber faster than the US and there were over 67 million customers added for the year ending in June 2019.
• Chinese speeds for landline connections averaged 31.3 Mbps in June 2019, up 25% since 2018. Mobile speeds in 2019 averaged 23 Mbps, up 7% from 2018.
• Like the US, China has a rural digital divide. In 2018 the country had 225 million rural Internet users representing a 39% penetration. Urban Internet users were 630 million, a 77% penetration. There are 347 million rural Chinese without access to the Internet, almost 25% of all citizens in the country. It’s hard to compare that statistic to the US since the FCC does such a lousy job of counting households with broadband.
• China is working to solve the rural digital divide and added 3 million rural Chinese to the Internet in the first half of 2019. However, much like here, that rate of growth is glacial, and at that rate of growth it will take 36 years for the rural population to grow to the same current penetration seen in urban areas.
• The Chinese are heavy users of instant messaging with 96.5% of Internet users using messaging in 2018.
• It’s important to remember that Chinese web users are monitored closely and live behind what the west calls the Great Firewall of China. The government tracks how people use broadband, and we don’t have direct statistics for the following:
  • Watch online video 88.8%
  • Use online news 80.3%
  • Shop online 74.8%
  • Online bill payment 74.1%
  • Order meals online 49.3%
  • Car hailing services 39.4%
• China’s mobile data traffic is growing even faster than in the US. In the first half of 2018, the Chinese mobile networks carried 266 petabytes of traffic. By the first half of 2019 that traffic had doubled to 554 petabytes. China’s cellular data usage doubled in one year, while here it’s taking two years to double. The numbers are huge, and a petabyte equals 100 billion gigabytes.
• The average Chinese broadband user spent 27.9 hours online in 2019.
• The CNNIC tracks why people don’t use the Internet. 45% don’t have access to broadband; 37% lack the skills to use broadband; 15% don’t have computers; 11% say they have no need. The interesting thing about the list in China is that nobody said they couldn’t afford Internet access.

There was one interesting thing missing in the Chinese report. There was no mention of 5G. That means, at least to the government agency that tracks broadband usage in China, there is no 5G race. It’s obvious that the Chinese need 5G, probably more badly than here, since the volumes of data on their mobile networks are doubling annually. But the topic wasn’t worth a mention in their annual report of the status of broadband.