The Covid-19 era has been a boon for the digital industry in China
Beijing residents use their phones on August 23, 2021 © Tingshu Wang, Reuters
Text by: Stéphane Lagarde Follow
7 mins
According to the
South China Morning Post
, the containment measures against the Covid-19 have exploded the use of screens by the Chinese, as well as the turnover of online sales, Alibaba in the lead.
But these habits are long-lasting, shows the daily report, published Monday, August 23, even among the oldest hitherto refractory.
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From our correspondent in Beijing,
The
era of Covid-19
is a boon for digital, with first a boom in the time spent on screens.
While China spent 5-6 hours a day on the internet before the pandemic, in the spring of 2020, many Chinese found themselves literally glued to their mobile or their computer: more than 7 hours a day on the internet.
Beyond confinement, habits have remained anchored in the world according to, obviously: "
the Covid-19 has caused a lasting impact on the internet sector and the use of new technologies
",
says the 131-page report published Monday 23 August
. The pandemic has considerably changed the way the Internet is used.
It has also opened up the apps to other audiences, in particular to the elderly who can be seen today leaning over their smartphones in Beijing, but also in the countryside.
"
Older people are engaged in the virtual world with enthusiasm during the pandemic
"
,
still write multimedia researchers from
South China Morning Post
(SCMP).
People over 41 have increased their Internet consumption by 14%, and we now have more than 900 million people connected in China, 99% of them on phones.
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Live-streaming e-commerce and sales platforms take the profits
At the top of the sectors that have benefited the most are e-commerce platforms and live streaming sales on networks.
E-commerce accounted for nearly 45% of retail sales last year and we are expected to cross the 50% mark in 2021.
Among
hundreds of thousands of sellers on the net,
influencers: these net personalities sell beauty products, but not only.
You can find everything in streaming, explains Gary Liu of SCMP.
"
The most important beauty influencer in the country, known as 'the king of lipstick
',
has made a name for himself by selling
15,000 lipsticks
live online in less than five minutes
, explains the CEO of the daily. Hong Kong
.
Last April, Viya, the queen of livestreaming sales, even managed to sell a rocket for 4.6 million euros.
There are also entrepreneurs who have embarked on it: Dong Mingzhu, the one also called the "queen of household appliances" in China, sold nearly 37 million euros of products in the space of three hours of live broadcast.
"
The live streaming market is expected to reach 613 million customer-users by the end of 2021.
Beijing wants to regulate the digital sector and take advantage of it
The other upward trend is online courses, which exploded during health restrictions.
Up to 50 million Chinese pupils and students from 30 provinces were registered on the DingTalk platform in 2020, for example.
Educational apps in China now have more than 70 million users.
Faced with its explosion,
the Chinese state wants to regulate the sector
. But some even speak of a digital revolution worthy of the cultural revolution: the authorities are currently slashing at all levels. Xi Jinping's China finds that red capitalism, and in particular this internet sector whose profits soared during the health crisis, has not put enough in the pot for the community, not enough redistributed to society.
Beijing has launched
major anti-monopoly investigations
, data control audits against e-commerce giant Alibaba, and various platforms such as VTC services or streaming video games.
Latest targets: private online lessons, many of which have recently been banned.
The SCMP report does not mention it: it must be said that the newspaper is the property ... of the Alibaba group.
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China: Beijing launches its project to regulate competition on the Internet
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