In this report, Mintel answers the following key questions:

• What are the usage patterns across different consumer technology products?

• Who are the winners and losers in the dynamic digital technology landscape?

• What is the penetration of O2O services in China and what are the barriers to grow online door-to-door services?

• What online information resources do consumers use to research different products?

This report examines trends in consumer technology and online behaviour in China. This is the third report in the Digital Trends China series, building on Mintel’s Digital Trends – China, June 2013 and Digital Trends - China, June 2014.

Personal computers, mobile phones, televisions, cameras, gaming consoles and wearable digital products are the major types of consumer technology products covered by this report.

Personal computer (PC)

PCs are categorised into three formats: desktop, laptop, and tablet.

Desktops refer to computers intended for use at a single location, including tower unit computers, all-in-one PCs, and small form factor PCs (eg Mac Mini, Chromebox).

Regular netbooks, ultrabooks (ultra-portable), Chromebooks (a notebook based on Google Chrome OS), convertible laptops (eg with swivel display or sliding keyboard), and hybrid laptops (eg with detachable keyboard) are categorised as laptops.

Tablets refer to the new style of computers popularised by the arrival of Apple’s iPad, and describe computers in a slate or slab format, with touchscreens and no permanently attached physical keyboards.

Mobile phone

The mobile phone market in China covers 2G, 3G and 4G and other mobile phone handsets. Both non-smartphones – which covers basic mobile phones and feature phones – and smartphones are included.

A basic mobile phone is mainly capable of calling and sending text messages.

A feature phone is defined as a device capable of connecting to the 2G networks (but not usually 3G), and which may come with a colour screen, a music player or a camera, but which typically lacks the advanced web browsing ability of a smartphone as well as the ability to download more applications.

A smartphone is defined as any modern mobile phone capable of connecting to the internet, and capable of downloading applications from proprietary application stores.

Television (TV)

The definition covers standard definition TVs and several major technology developments, including High Definition Television (HDTV) and Smart TV.

HDTVs are the high standard of digital TVs, which use digital signals for data transmission.

Smart TVs refer to internet-enabled TV sets.

Camera

Point-and-shoot digital cameras (P&S), Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras (both digital and film), and video cameras are all included.

Gaming console

This report discusses video game consoles, which refers to a device that outputs a video signal or visual image to display a video game, including PlayStation, X-Box and Wii.

Wearable digital products

A wearable digital product refers to devices incorporating electronic technologies or computers that can be worn by a consumer, such as an activity tracker or smart watch.

For the purposes of this report, Mintel commissioned a quantitative research survey carried out online via QQSurvey to examine consumers’ technology product ownership and usage, online activities and O2O services usage.

Fieldwork was conducted in April 2015, in four tier one cities and six tier two and tier three cities of 3,000 adults aged 20-49 across the country. The tier one cities are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu. The tier two and tier three cities are Tianjin, Chongqing, Hefei, Handan, Xuzhou and Zhanjiang.

This is a marketing intelligence report published by Mintel. The consumer research exclusively commissioned for this report was conducted by a Chinese licensed market survey agent (see Research Methodology China for more information).