Think You Know China?

So you think you know China? Here are just some of the many amazing facts I've noted this week during our visit to Shanghai.


There are about one hundred country-level international technology parks in China. There are 1,000 additional technology parks in the Country that are at the provincial level.

China is the #1 snack and beverage market in the world.

China is the #3 blog market in the world.

China has 738 million mobile subscribers (55% country penetration), while the U.S has just 234 million.

China has 298 million Internet users, while the U.S. has just 225 million.

There are 100 million online gamers in China, and 75% spend more than three hours per day online.

There are 350 million instant message users in China, almost none of which use Western IM services (China has its own service, called QQ).

Chinese issue 700 million Internet search queries per day, and the Chinese search market is growing at 70% CAGR.

350 million people come from single-child families (due to the country's one-child policy, introduced in 1978). These children have been raised with the best of everything and have typically had focused care from four adults (two parents and two grandparents). Soon these single children will be having their own single-child families. This is what makes the China market different from any market in the world.

Since they are single children, Chinese kids have made 50% of their friends online.

Even the smaller cities in China have populations of 3-5 million people each.

Best Buy China is able to have a new private-label product designed, manufactured, and on store shelves in just three weeks.

Local automakers in China are still growing at 14% annually, serving just the China market.

A site that was farmland five years ago now hosts a technology park with 4,000 companies and 12,000 employees. Space will open in 2012 for another sixty thousand employees.

70-80% of companies in Shanghai are now focused primarily on R&D and sales to the internal Chinese market, not on exports.

Last year, U.S. ports were not able to keep up with materials and goods being shipped from Shanghai. Goods often needed to be re-routed through Canada and then shipped by train or truck back into the U.S.

The Shanghai region, about the size of Montana, has 100 million residents (inclduing 2.5 million university students).

Ten years ago, China had just 10 MBA programs. Today there are over 100 MBA programs, and 20,000 MBA's graduate in China every year.

Most Chinese multinational companies now say their primary competition is internal Chinese start-up companies, not Western firms.