Chinese adults have 260 fewer minutes a week to consume media compared to Americans because they work so hard

LONDON - Chinese adults work longer weeks and have less time to consume the internet and the media, hurting profits in the sector, according to research by Bernstein.

Analysts estimated that the average Chinese adult has 460 minutes of time to allocate to media activities, such as watching television, compared to 720 minutes for the average American.

This is because more of them work in areas such as manufacturing, mining and construction "where multi-tasking (i.e. surfing social media at work) is harder."

But despite having less time for leisure, Chinese adults still spend the same amount of time on their phone as their American counterparts, according to Bernstein, helping to buoy up internet media companies:

"This incredible feat has so far helped mask the fundamental paucity of user minutes in China, but we are finally reaching a stage where the boundary of time is set to assert itself. Traditional media has been crushed. Television, if it yields, will most likely donate its minutes to specific formats, such as video, which are adjacent to it. For much else, Chinese Internet users are time-constrained."

Here is the chart:

And here is why it matters to Chinese internet companies. It takes a lot of engaged minutes per user to make money, especially in video media: