On January 9th, the China Internet Association released the "Internet Guide 2007", which details internet users' activity and conduct focusing on 50 website categories and the ten general fields of Internet advertisements, comprehensive portals, search engines, instant communication, C2C e-commerce, online games, blogs, blog video sharing, music and cars.

Commenting in a recent interview, HuYanping, head of China Internet Survey Group, stated that network businesses are entering a "mature phase" with Internet advertising serving as a representative of industry trends. “Internet advertisements are developing very rapidly beyond our expectations,” says Hu.

Portals’ market revenues for 2006 amounted to RMB 10.1 billion, an increase of 23% over the same period last year. The market revenue in 2007 is expected to reach RMB 12.8 billion with a growth rate of 28%. In 2008 it is expected to reach RMB 16 billion, representing a growth rate of 25%.

Despite this, growth rate of 23%-28%, a relatively good figure, against other Internet fields, portal growth rate is lagging behind that in the entire industry: the market in 2006 showed that the portal enterprises are very different from other sectors. The network advertising market performed very well in 2005 and 2006 and it is expected to remain lucrative in the following two to three years, and as such tremendous opportunities are available to enterprises relying on network advertising for revenue and profit growth.

However, relying only on network advertising is not enough to maximize revenues and relying instead on instant communication tools or online games has also proven to be a profitable strategy for online enterprises.

The revenues of internet games reached RMB 3.68 billion in 2005 and RMB 5.96 billion in 2006. These revenuesare expected to reach 7.2 billion yuan by the end of 2007 and RMB 9 billion in 2008. Growth in 2006 is quite obvious and in the next two years, it will slow down markedly.

By the end of 2006, revenues from online advertisement market size reached RMB 4.98 billion. Hu says that in the next few years Internet advertising market is expected to grow at a very impressive rate: “In all statistical data for analysis, we see a relatively high growth rate of Internet advertisements. It is completely possible to achieve annual growth rate of more than 50% for three consecutive years.”

Hu continues, “It is worth our attention that an annual revenue growth rate of 39.86% in the car industry was achieved in 2006 which is a very important development for online advertising. A very substantial growth is expected in the field as a result. This can help the Internet enterprises to divert resources and segregate their market. It is still very clear. Competition is a process.”

In addition, the mapping service draws attention to the activity in the industry over the past two years. Many enterprises which had withdrawn from the field have restarted enterprise. Generally speaking, if the upward trend in the industry can be attributed to the growth of user scale, the service providers or revenue, momentum of growth is still very strong. An increase of 146.17% was achieved in 2006 compared with 2005. Revenues amounted to RMB148 million. A growth rate of 102.70% and 66.67% are expected the next two years.