About PChome

PChome

PChome, published at pchome.net, is a Shanghai consumer-technology news portal whose name translates as Computer Home. Tracing its origins to 1996, it publishes computer, mobile and digital-product news, reviews and prices, and it ranks among China's earliest IT websites. PChome belongs to the founding generation of the Chinese web: it began in the years when China's internet consisted largely of university networks and the first commercial dial-up services, and it grew into one of the recognised IT verticals of the portal era alongside IT168, Zhongguancun Online and PConline.

The portal should not be confused with the Taiwanese e-commerce company of a similar name. The PChome in this profile is the mainland Chinese technology publication at pchome.net — a Shanghai news and product site whose business is editorial: reporting the computer and digital-products industry, testing products, and telling China's consumers what things cost and how they perform.

Origins in the earliest Chinese web

PChome's 1996 origin, recorded in Chinese IT-portal histories, places it among the very first Chinese technology websites. To put that date in context: China's first internet media appeared in 1995, and commercial internet services were in their infancy; a computer publication founded online in 1996 was a pioneer of web publishing in any genre. The name it chose — Computer Home, Jiji Zhijia in spirit — spoke to its intended audience of home and personal computer users at the moment the PC was entering Chinese households and offices.

From those beginnings the site developed with the industry it covered: the desktop-PC era, the rise of laptops and digital cameras, the mobile-phone boom and the smartphone era. Its longevity is itself a documented fact of Chinese internet history — few publications anywhere have published continuously through the entire commercial life of the web in their country.

Standing in the portal era

PChome's position among China's IT verticals is documented in the industry's own records. A Hong Kong-listed portal group's prospectus, citing iResearch data for 2006, listed the vertical IT portals by IT-product advertising revenue: PChome appeared ninth in that ranking, in the company of PConline, Yesky, ZOL, IT168 and PCPOP — the recognised national set of Chinese product portals at the height of the portal era.

Consumer research tells the same story from the readers' side. A 2011 industry study of how online information influenced Chinese buying behaviour listed the most important specialist and price-comparison websites used by consumers: PChome was named by 31 percent of respondents — second only to PConline in that table, and ahead of ZOL and IT168. For a publication, that is the essential metric of the genre: when China's consumers researched a technology purchase, PChome was one of the places they went.

What PChome publishes

PChome publishes consumer-technology journalism in the classic vertical form. Its news covers the computer, mobile and digital-products industries — launches, company developments and market data. Its product coverage provides the apparatus buyers use: product information organised by category, reviews and evaluations, and price information that lets readers compare what devices cost across the market. Buying guidance interprets specifications and test results for non-specialist readers.

The categories themselves trace the industry's history. Computers came first — the publication's name guarantees it — and remain central; mobile phones became the highest-volume consumer technology category in China and a corresponding focus; digital products in the broad sense, from cameras to peripherals and smart devices, complete the brief. The portal's Shanghai base places its newsroom in the city that hosts many of the industry's China launches and trade events.

Shanghai and the Yangtze Delta technology market

PChome is a Shanghai publication, and its location distinguishes it within its peer set: IT168 and ZOL are Beijing titles, PConline is Guangzhou-based, and PChome speaks from China's largest commercial city. Shanghai and the surrounding Yangtze Delta form one of the world's great consumer-electronics markets — a wealthy, early-adopting readership, dense retail, and the China operations of much of the global technology industry.

That setting shaped the portal's character. A Shanghai IT vertical serves readers who buy early and compare carefully, in a city where product launches, flagship stores and trade shows are local news. PChome's price and product information has always had a practical, market-facing cast suited to that audience.

The genre PChome helped create

To understand PChome's significance, it helps to understand the Chinese IT vertical as a form. In the 2000s, as China became the world's largest market for personal computers and mobile phones, specialist portals became the reference layer between manufacturers and consumers: they held the specifications, the test results, the street prices and the reader discussion in one place, funded by the industry's advertising. Industry data from the period shows the scale of that role — the leading verticals ranked alongside the general portals Sina, Sohu and NetEase in IT advertising revenue, and consumer studies found the verticals named as the most important product-information sources by a third or more of buyers.

PChome was present at the creation of that form and remained one of its recognised names through its peak. Publications of its generation did not merely report the Chinese technology market; by organising its prices and products, they helped make it legible to its own consumers.

Position and competition today

The environment around the verticals has changed: e-commerce platforms carry prices and user reviews, manufacturers communicate directly with buyers, and video and social platforms compete for technology attention. PChome's continuing offer is the editorial one it has made since the 1990s — news, structured product information, reviews and prices under a publication's own name, in a market where buyers still research before spending and where an independent publication's organisation of the market retains value.

Within its peer set, PChome's distinguishing marks are its age — tracing to 1996, it predates almost every other Chinese technology publication still operating — and its Shanghai identity. In directories of Chinese IT media it is consistently listed among the established verticals, the first rank of the portal era.

Readers and how the site is used

PChome's readers are technology consumers and enthusiasts: buyers comparing computers, phones and digital products; readers following industry news; and the trade watching launches and prices. Its product and price information serves readers mid-purchase, its news serves the generally interested, and its long archive serves researchers tracing the development of China's consumer-technology market from the dial-up era forward.

As a Chinese online publication, PChome operates within the country's framework for internet information services, including the internet news information service licensing system administered by the Cyberspace Administration of China, under which online news provision is licensed nationally and through provincial offices. Its listing in Chinese IT-portal histories as a Shanghai publication tracing to 1996 records its standing in that system and in its industry.

Why PChome matters

PChome matters because of when it started and how long it has lasted. A computer publication founded on the Chinese web in 1996 — before almost everything else in this directory existed — it became one of the recognised IT verticals of the portal era, named by nearly a third of Chinese consumers as a key source of product and price information in industry research, and it still publishes from Shanghai today. It stands in the record as evidence of how early, and how durably, China built its own technology press.