Software Piracy Rate in China Declines to 24% in 2006

June 5, 2007

According to the Investigation Report on Software Piracy Rate in China in 2006 issued by Intellectual Property Office on May 14, 2007, the software piracy rate has been declining from 26% in 2005 to 24% in 2006.

The press conference for Investigation Report on Software Piracy Rate in China in 2006 reveals that the software industry has annual sales of RMB 480 billions in 2006, among which sales of the software products has reached RMB273.6 billions.

The investigation discloses several main causes of PC software piracy: irregularity and large numbers of newly installed software; the inertia of installing pirate software; deficiency of after-sale service for software; lack of cheap or even free teaching software. In order to crackdown the software piracy fundamentally, we shall not only rely on the market management, but also the quality and structure of the software products. The piracy rate can be decreased by improving the follow-up services and increasing cheap and free teaching software.

The data of the Investigation Report on Software Piracy Rate in China in 2005 revealed that the piracy rate was 26% if calculated according to the sales of the whole software industry, 40% if calculated according to the sales of whole software products and 57% if calculated according to the sales of PC software.

If calculated according to the installed PC software in 2005, the piracy rate was 26%, among which the piracy rate of unit users was 16% and of individual users was 41%. However, if calculated according to the installed payable PC software, the piracy rate was 66%, among which the piracy rate of unit users was 48% and of individual users was 80%.