​Mobile internet industry

Changsha city, capital of Hunan province, has seen a rapid development of its mobile internet industry in recent years, becoming the fifth biggest city in terms of industry scale after only Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hangzhou.

Currently, the city has more than 200,000 mobile internet enterprises, among which 120 are above a designated size. The operating income of the city's mobile internet industry reached 75 billion yuan ($11.96 billion), accounting for 88 percent of the province's total amount at 84.5 billion yuan.

The Changsha High-Tech Development Zone, an industrial cluster which focuses on the mobile internet industry, is currently home to more than 5,000 mobile internet enterprises. It is a staggering rate of growth as there were only around 300 just four years ago.  

The rapid development of Changsha's mobile internet industry can be owed to the city's preferential policies. In 2014, Changsha issued a successful action plan to boost the development of mobile internet firms among which Microsoft, Google, Huawei, Oracle, Tencent and ZET, settled down in the city. There were also a number of other small-sized enterprises who came along as well, each budding with potential. 

A series of policies were also released to attract talented individuals to work in Changsha, where several internet enterprises had set up research and development bases. There are also research institutions and well-known universities, such as the National University of Defense Technology, Central South University and Hunan University, which provide human resources support for the mobile internet industry.

The city has also been striving to integrate the internet industry with the traditional manufacturing sector and has made significant breakthroughs. The cloud platform established by Sany Heavy Industry, Zoomlion Group and Changsha Intelligent Manufacturing Research Institute has helped small-and-medium-sized enterprises achieve information-based development at lower costs.

The mobile internet industry in Changsha has developed in syngery with that of Zhuzhou and Xiangtan, two cities adjacent to Changsha. There were 11,000 newly registered software and internet enterprises in Hunan province, among which 60 percent were located within these three cities. By the end of 2017, the total amount of software and internet enterprises in the three cities accounted for 56 percent of the province's 43,000.