By Paul Mozur
BEIJING--The number of Chinese using Twitter-like microblogs
fell 9% in 2013 from 2012, according to a new government report,
likely reflecting a recent crackdown by the government on the
platforms and growing competition from popular mobile messaging
applications.
According to a report released by the government established
China Internet Network Information Center, total users of
microblogs in China fell to 280.8 million in 2013 from 308.6
million in 2013, a trend which the center attributed to growing
competition from social networks and messaging applications on
smartphones.
The report comes in the midst of a renewed campaign to crack
down on microblogs, which act like a virtual town square for many
in China to voice their opinions about a range of issues from
government corruption and environmental degradation to sports and
pop stars. The government has long sought greater control over
information distributed by microblogs, known as weibo in Chinese,
and mandates that companies operating the sites closely monitor and
censor content.
Though the report doesn't bring up the campaign--which has led
to the warning and arrest of high-profile commentators and the
expansion of criminal laws that make it easier to prosecute people
for their online activity--many analysts have warned the crackdown
would dampen the use of microblogs.
The report doesn't specify how the data about user numbers was
collected or which microblogs the data references. Internet giants
Sina Corp. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. operate China's two largest
microblog services. In the third quarter, Sina Corp. said daily
active users grew 11.2% to 60.2 million by the end of September
from the end of June. Tencent didn't release a figure for its Weibo
users in earnings filings for the third quarter.
A spokesman for Sina Corp. said the numbers in the report didn't
match statistics from its most recent earnings, adding that no
organization had been in contact with them about collecting
statistics on their user base. A Tencent spokesman didn't respond
to a request for comment.
Though it is unclear what the numbers mean for the number of
users on the two companies' microblogs, it is a strong indication
that users are continuing to shift from Weibo to social media
platforms used on smartphones. In particular, over the past two
years Tencent's WeChat messaging service has grown quickly in
popularity. At the end of September WeChat boasted 272 million
monthly active users, more than double what it had at the same time
a year earlier.
Beyond the declines in microblogging, the report said China's
total number of Internet users continued to grow quickly. In 2013
the country added 54 million users, rising to a total of 618
million users by the end of 2013 from 564 million in 2012. The
report also said that 73% of Chinese Internet users were getting
online through their mobile phones, with the country's total number
of mobile Internet users rising to 500 million at the end of 2013
from 420 million at the end of 2012.
Write to Paul Mozur at paul.mozur@wsj.com
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