On April 28, China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released the 45th “Statistical Report on the Development of China Internet Network” (hereinafter referred to as “Report”). “Report” shows that as of March 2020, China’s online education users reached 423 million, an increase of 222 million compared with the end of 2018, accounting for 46.8% of the overall Internet users.
As of March 2020, China’s Internet users reached 904 million, an increase of 75.08 million from the end of 2018, and the Internet penetration rate reached 64.5%, an increase of 4.9 percentage points from the end of 2018. Specific to online education, the “Report” shows that as of March 2020, China’s online education users reached 423 million, an increase of 222 million from the end of 2018, accounting for 46.8% of the total netizens; mobile online education users reached 420 million, compared with 2018 At the end of the year, it increased by 226 million, accounting for 46.9% of mobile Internet users.
In 2019, China’s online education initiated 148 financings, a year-on-year increase of 38.3%, and the total financing amount reached 11.56 billion yuan. “Report” pointed out that the current emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data have been widely used in the field of online education. With the commercialization of 5G in China, the interactive teaching method of live broadcast will be used more in online education. The existing pain points such as unsmooth picture and delayed content will also be further improved.
At the beginning of 2020, the country ’s primary, secondary, and elementary schools were postponed, and the “Report” showed that 265 million students in schools generally switched to online courses, and user needs were fully released. During the epidemic, the number of daily active users of several online education applications reached more than 10 million. Various schools actively explore online education. The Ministry of Education organized the launch of 22 online course platforms and opened 24,000 online courses to provide guarantees for non-stop classes and non-stop classes for ordinary colleges and universities during the epidemic.
On the other hand, multiple office applications cross-border online education. Office applications such as Dingding and Tencent Meeting have become online education platforms, adopted by teachers and students nationwide. In addition, communications and e-commerce platforms have joined the market competition. Huawei, JD.com, etc. have launched online education classrooms or teaching systems to join the competition in the online education industry.