Digital 2026: China
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This page contains all the data, insights, and trends you need to help you understand how people in China use digital devices, online platforms, and connected services in 2026.
If you want to know whether this is our most recent report on China, or if you’re looking for data on digital trends and behaviours in China for other years, you can find DataReportal’s full collection of (free!) reports on China by clicking here.
You’ll also find the complete Digital 2026 report for China in the “full report” section towards the bottom of this page, but we’ll start this article by taking a look at the essential headline numbers for China this year.
Just before that, we’d like to say a big thank you to Meltwater and to We Are Social for their support of this year’s report.
A note on dates
To align our reporting more closely with our readers’ digital planning cycles, please be aware that we published our Digital 2026 reports at the end of 2025.
As a result, many of the data points we’ll reference in this article are from late 2025.
For reassurance, these data points reflect the latest available data in October 2025, so they’re still highly representative of digital adoption and evolving preferences and behaviours in China in 2026.
However, because we’ve changed our publication cycle since our Digital 2025 reports, please pay close attention to the dates and time periods stated in this article and in our accompanying Digital 2026 reports, and avoid calculating values for change over time by referencing data published in our previous reports and articles.
We’ve included a wealth of figures for change over time within this article, and you’ll find even more within the full report at the bottom of this page.
OK, ready to start exploring the data?
The “state of digital” in China in 2026
Here are DataReportal’s essential headlines for the adoption and use of connected devices and services in China in 2026:
A total of 1.83 billion cellular mobile connections were active in China in late 2025, with this figure equivalent to 129 percent of the total population. However, note that some of these connections may only include services such as voice and SMS, and some may not include access to the internet.
There were 1.30 billion individuals using the internet in China at the end of 2025, when online penetration stood at 91.6 percent.
China was home to 1.28 billion social media user identities in October 2025, equating to 90.3 percent of the total population.
These headline stats offer a great overview of the “state of digital” in China for 2026, but in order to make sense of how digital trends and behaviours have been evolving, we need to dig deeper into the data.
So, let’s take a closer look at what the numbers tell us, starting with some valuable context relating to the population of China.
Population of China in 2026
Data from the United Nations indicates that the population of China stood at 1.42 billion in October 2025.
The same dataset also shows that China’s population decreased by 3.3 million (-0.2 percent) between the end of 2024 and the end of 2025.
Meanwhile, in late 2025, 66.7 percent of China’s population lived in urban centres, whereas 33.3 percent lived in rural areas.
At that time, 49.1 percent of China’s population was female, while 50.9 percent of the population was male.
Note: gender data were only available for “female” and “male” at the time of report production.
China’s population by age
At the end of 2025, the median age of China’s population was 40.1, with half of China’s population above this age, and the other half of the population below it.
For added context, here’s how China’s total population broke down by age group at the end of the year, according to the United Nations’ data:
3.4 percent was between the ages of 0 and 4.
9.5 percent was between the ages of 5 and 12.
6.2 percent was between the ages of 13 and 17.
7.9 percent was between the ages of 18 and 24.
12.8 percent was between the ages of 25 and 34.
15.8 percent was between the ages of 35 and 44.
14.6 percent was between the ages of 45 and 54.
14.9 percent was between the ages of 55 and 64.
14.9 percent was aged 65 and above.
Note: percentages may not sum to 100 percent due to rounding.
Mobile connections in China in 2026
Data from GSMA Intelligence shows that there were 1.83 billion cellular mobile connections in China at the end of 2025.
For perspective, many people make use of more than one mobile connection, so it’s not unusual for mobile connection figures to significantly exceed figures for total population.
For example, the same person might have one mobile connection for personal use, but also use a separate mobile connection for work activities. The rise of eSIMs has made this even easier over recent years.
Indeed, GSMA Intelligence’s numbers indicate that mobile connections in China were equivalent to 129 percent of the total population in October 2025.
Looking at trends over time, the number of mobile connections in China increased by 31 million (+1.7 percent) between the end of 2024 and the end of 2025.
Meanwhile, GSMA Intelligence’s data suggests that 100 percent of mobile connections in China can now be considered “broadband”, which means that they connect via 3G, 4G, or 5G mobile networks.
However, devices that connect to “broadband” mobile networks do not necessarily use cellular mobile data — for example, some subscription plans may only include access to voice and SMS services — so this broadband figure should not be considered a proxy for mobile internet use.
Internet use in China in 2026
At the time of report production, Kepios’s analysis of the latest available data indicated that there were 1.30 billion internet users in China in October 2025.
This means that China’s internet penetration rate stood at 91.6 percent of the total population at the end of the year.
For reference, our internet user figures are informed by data from numerous reputable sources, including:
The ITU (the International Telecommunication Union), which is the United Nations’ specialised agency for digital technologies that “facilitates international connectivity in communication networks”.
GSMA Intelligence, which is the market intelligence arm of the GSMA, a global organisation that ”unifies the mobile ecosystem to discover, develop, and deliver innovation”.
Eurostat, which is the statistical office of the European Union.
National telecommunications authorities, government regulators, and national statistics offices.
Planning tools provided by various large internet companies, including Google and Meta.
Kepios’s analysis of this data indicates that the number of internet users in China decreased by 1.6 million (-0.1 percent) between October 2024 and October 2025.
And for added perspective, China’s internet adoption rate (i.e. the percentage of the total population that uses the internet) increased by a relative 0.1 percent (+10 basis points) during the same period.
But these user figures also suggest that 119 million people in China did not use the internet at the end of 2025, suggesting that 8.4 percent of the population remained “offline” at the end of the year.
However, complexities associated with the collection and analysis of internet user data mean that it can often take several months before research is ready for publication.
As a result, the latest published figures for internet use may under-represent current realities, and actual rates for internet adoption and year-on-year growth may be higher than the figures shown here suggest.
Please see our comprehensive notes on data for further details.
Internet connection speeds in China in 2026
Figures published by Ookla indicate that internet users in China could have expected the following internet connection speeds at the end of 2025, reported in megabits per second (Mbps):
Median mobile internet download speed via cellular data networks*: 164.94 Mbps.
Median fixed internet download speed: 214.34 Mbps.
Ookla’s data reveals that the median mobile internet download speed in China increased by 56.57 Mbps (+52.2 percent) in the twelve months to August 2025.
Meanwhile, the company’s data shows that the download speed of the typical fixed internet connection in China increased by 24.85 Mbps (+13.1 percent) during the same period.
*Note: values for mobile internet connection speeds only include data transfer via cellular mobile networks (e.g. 3G, 4G, and 5G connections), and do not represent the speed of mobile connections via WiFi where the WiFi router connects to the internet via “fixed” infrastructure.
Social media statistics for China in 2026
Proprietary analysis conducted by Kepios on behalf of DataReportal indicates that there were 1.28 billion active social media user identities in China in October 2025.
For perspective, this figure was equivalent to 90.3 percent of China’s total population at the end of 2025.
However, while Kepios’s methodology strives to “de-duplicate” social media users across different social platforms — and, wherever possible, to remove accounts that do not represent individual human users — it’s important to stress that our social media user identities figures may not represent unique individuals (see our detailed notes on data to learn why).
Moreover, due to complexities associated with de-duplicating users across different social platforms, the methodology that we use to calculate social media user identities may sometimes only factor users of the social media platform that has the largest active audience in the respective country at the time of report production.
As a result, the figures that we publish for a country’s overall social media use may sometimes look very similar to the statistics that we publish for the most popular social media platform in that country.
Separately, please also note that the signals and sources that we rely on to inform these social media figures make regular changes and corrections to their data.
Consequently, the values for social media use shown here might appear to be quite different to the numbers that we published in previous years.
Because of this, we advise significant caution when comparing the values for social media user identities published in this year’s reports with those published in previous years, especially because changes in our reported values may be the result of “corrections” in the source data, and not all trends will be the result of changes in actual user behaviour.
This is particularly pertinent when it comes to trends in social media use over time, and we recommend that readers use the change figures published below, rather than trying to re-calculate growth figures using data published in our previous reports.
And on that note, Kepios’s analysis shows that social media user identities in China increased by 6.0 million (+0.5 percent) between late 2024 and the end of 2025.
Turning our attention to user demographics, data published by CNNIC indicates that there were 1.07 billion user identities aged 18 and above using social media in China at the end of 2025, which was equivalent to 93.8 percent of the total population aged 18 and above.
At that time, 49.6 percent of China’s social media user identities were female, while 50.4 percent were male.
And for added context, it may be helpful to know that 98.6 percent of China’s total internet user base (regardless of age) used at least one social media platform in October 2025.
Note: due to source data limitations, we’re only able to report gender data for “female” and “male”.
Users of individual social media platforms
We’re currently unable to provide China-specific reach for the top social media platforms in China.
However, the complete Digital 2026: China report that you’ll find towards the bottom of this article includes global data for many of the most popular social media platforms in the country, including (amongst others):
微信: Weixin, a messenger platform that is also known as WeChat outside of China.
抖音: Douyin, a short video platform that’s the Chinese “sibling” of TikTok.
快手: Kuaishou, another short video platform that’s also known as Kwai outside of China.
微博: Weibo, a micro-blogging platform similar to X that was formerly known as Sina Weibo.
Many of these platforms also have users outside of China of course, but data from GWI suggests that the vast majority of these platform’s active users were resident in mainland China at the end of 2025.
Additional resources
Just before we get to the full report, here are some suggestions for further reading, which will provide additional context for our full set of Digital 2026 numbers for China:
Read our complete Digital 2026 Global Overview Report to get a comprehensive overview of the “state of digital” around the world in 2026.
Click here to see all of the Global Digital Reports we’ve published for China over the years.
Explore all of our reports on countries in the Eastern Asia region by clicking here.
Find all of the reports in the Digital 2026 series via this handy index page.
Visit our complete online library to see all of the (free!) reports in the Global Digital Reports series.
If you’d like to receive updates when we publish new reports, click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Full report
You’ll find our complete Digital 2026: China report in the embed below (click here if you can’t see that, or if you can’t move through the slides).