Dianping, a Chinese platform for local business search, user-generated reviews, and featured discounts, has released a new report on mobile Internet use in China. The report, “2013 Mobile Life,” revealed some interesting insights that might not be expected. The most notable of those insights is the revelation that, for the first time, second-tier and third-tier cities are outpacing cities like Beijing and Shanghai is growth and use of mobile Internet.
One of the functions of Dianping’s app is enabling users to make restaurant reservations in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Nanjing. Naturally, one of the things the survey aimed to answer was how mobile trends are impacting mobile dinner reservations. Since the launch of the service at the beginning of the year, reservations made via mobile devices are now double those made by telephone. The three most popular functions—70 percent of their users—were still nearby merchant search, keyword search and group buying.
Mobile data is important in Asia. Kirthiga Reddy noted in an interview with Fast Company that it is often the case the Indian Facebook (News - Alert) users never use a desktop. While the two countries may be very different, the prevalence of mobile internet services around the world is clear.
According to Xinhua, mobile Internet has been the driving force behind the profits of the telecom giants. It is reported that, in the first six months of the year, China Mobile (News 
- Alert), China Unicom, and China Telecom had net profits of 78.5 billion yuan and operating revenue of over 600 billion yuan. Clearly, the mobile market in China is exploding, which will hold big profits for the telecom companies. Companies like Dianping, which meet Chinese mobile users where they are—on their mobile devices—also have the potential to cash in big on the growing market.
Edited by Rachel Ramsey
