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Ni Hao!

Ni hui bu hui shuo putonghua? Do you speak Chinese? Plenty of people do – about 1.3 billion in China give or take the odd ten million. Many of then use the Internet too, with China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), a state-affiliated research group recently announcing that China now has the world’s highest number of Internet users: 298 million by the end of 2008, a leap of 42% from the previous year.

There’s still plenty of room for growth as current Internet uptake represents a mere 22.6%, slightly higher than the world's average of 21.9%. In the USA usage runs at just over 70%.

Access to the Internet through mobile devices surged 113% to 117.6% with growth expected to be explosive over the next few years as new 3G licenses are issues and technology rolled out. One of the reasons for such a strong of mobile connectivity culture is accredited to the leapfrog of mobile adoption over desktop use. Mobile use, and the business models applied by the mobile operators have evolved well ahead of that experienced in the west.

In China as more than 300 million people own a mobile but not a PC, their phone will probably be their first personal access to the internet and only consistent access to digital media. All eyes are on China and other Asian countries looking for clues and concepts that might prove useful in predicting how mobile technology might evolve in other less traditionally mobile-centric market places.

One clue might be in the success of CRBT (Caller or Colour Ringback tones). China Mobile’s CRBT revenues alone leapt 75% to nearly USD $2 billion, in 2008. Mobile music in China also provides a fascinating window on the possible future of western mobile use. In 2008 M:Metrics reported an astonishing 34.8% of the 530 million mobile subscribers in China used their phones to listen to music, compared to 5.7% in the US.