According to a European Commission report this week, there is still some way for internet penetration in Europe to travel. Some countries like Sweden are mad for it, some in ‘New Europe’ are less bothered. But that is not the most the most interesting geographical statistic about the internet if you ask me… There are already 137 million internet users in China today. But, that massive number is only 10% of the population! Just think about the growth potential and the traffic consequences for the net. Especially given that China sports the fastest internet growth rate in the world. 15% of current non users claim they will be online within six months and China will easily overtake the USA for users by 2009.

Whats fascinating about this growth is the potential for two parallel internets on planet Earth. (1) The internet that we all use and (2) the internet that China uses. The internet in China is still very much a walled garden. It is heavily populated by Chinese ‘own brand’ leaders like Baidu.com, QQ.com and Taobao.com. It is also heavily censored. This is called the firewall is called the Golden Shield and it is enforced by over 30,000 internet police officers patrolling the internet in China. They even have their own avatars that appear online to encourage acceptable behaviour. Meet Jingjing and Chacha, the virtual faces of the law…

It is therefore quite a complicated environment for Western brands to engage. Google and Yahoo have famously sold out on their commitments to the freedom of information in order to maintain their relatively small shares of the big pie. While internet penetration in Europe still has a short distance to cover, it is at least predictable. For example, it is safe to assume that fifty year old Greek women will eventually start playing Soduku online and that middle class Bulgarian families will get into Skype. The boom in China is set to be explosive and far more interesting. And, importantly for us, the rules of digital content and marketing are sure to be very different and uniquely challenging.

Tags: China, Internet, penetration, statistics