China's short video users number 873 million

China saw its number of online audiovisual users expanding to 944 million as of December 2020, of whom 873 million were short video subscribers, according to a newly released report.

Photo shows a staff member introducing the latest report on the development of China's internet audio-and-video industry. (Photo courtesy of the sponsor)

The report released by China Netcasting Services Association, one of the biggest associations in the Chinese Internet industry, said the value of China's extensive online audio-and-video content market exceeded 600.91 billion yuan ($93.86 billion), a rise of 32.3 percent year on year.

Among them, the market value in the field of short videos reached 205.13 billion yuan, an increase of 57.5 percent year on year. Meanwhile, the value of comprehensive video content market made up 119.03 billion yuan, an increase of 16.3 percent year on year, while the value of live streaming totaled 113.44 billion yuan, up 34.5 percent from the same period last year.

As of December 2020, the number of online audio-visual users in China stood at 944 million, an increase of 43.21 million over June 2020 and making up 95.4 percent of all netizens. Among them, the number of short video users totaled 873 million, about 88.3 percent of all cyber citizens, while the number of live streaming users reached 617 million, about 62.4 percent of all online users.

China saw a total of 49.15 million new online users from June to December 2020. Among them, 25.2 percent came into contact with the Internet because of online audio-visual applications, while 20.4 percent were attracted by short video applications.

An increasing number of Chinese netizens used videos to record the moments of their lives. According to the report, 46.1 percent of users uploaded short videos in the past six months, a significant rise of 28.6 percent over 2019.

With regard to the type of short videos uploaded, short videos about "daily life" are the most common, followed by "tourist" or "scenery-themed" ones, which account for 31.6 percent of the total. By contrast, "funny", "food" and "music" videos account for more than 20 percent of the total.

Also noteworthy is the fact that 28.2 percent of online video users preferred not to watch video programs at their original speed. In particular, nearly 40 percent of the post-00's generation chose to watch at twice the speed or more.

It has been shown that male users adopt the speed mode mainly to improve viewing efficiency, while females often use this function due to slow plots or in order to avoid certain content they do not enjoy.