China Programmer Survey Report (Q4 2014): Demographics, Device & OS Usage, Browsers, and Programming Languages
The report surveyed 1 million Chinese programmers in Q4 2014, revealing that most are 20‑40, male-dominated, concentrated in tech hubs, primarily use PCs with Windows 7, Chrome, and languages C++/C, while mobile usage favors Android and iOS.
The fourth‑quarter 2014 "China Programmer Survey Report" collected data from 1 million Chinese programmers, analyzing age, region, gender, browsers, operating systems, devices, and programming languages. The findings provide a reference for industry professionals and researchers.
Age Distribution : Over 80% of programmers are aged 20‑40, about 10% are 40‑49 (mostly in management), and 4% are 10‑19, indicating early entry into programming. Compared with general net users, the age trend is similar, but the 10‑19 segment is larger among net users.
Gender Ratio : Male programmers account for roughly 80% while females make up about 20%. This gender gap is far larger than that of ordinary net users, whose gender distribution mirrors the general population.
Regional Distribution : Programmers concentrate in economically and technologically advanced regions: Guangdong (14.87%), Beijing (13.21%), Jiangsu (7.55%), Shanghai (6.39%), Shandong (5.31%) and Zhejiang (5.31%). Other notable clusters include Shaanxi, Hubei, and Sichuan.
Work Devices : 93.84% of programmers use PCs for work; only about 6% use mobile devices, mainly for browsing code or resources during idle time.
Operating Systems (PC) : Windows 7 dominates with 61.27%, followed by Windows XP (20.19%), Windows 8 (12.3%). macOS accounts for 3.34% and Linux 2.01%.
Operating Systems (Mobile) : Among mobile‑working programmers, Android is used by 76.47%, iOS by 22.69%, with a small fraction still on Symbian.
Browser Usage (PC) : Chrome leads (52.06%). IE8 is the most used version (54.78%), followed by IE9 (25.22%) and IE10 (12.37%).
Browser Usage (Mobile) : Android WebKit Browser dominates (36.5%), Safari follows (20.1%), UC Browser (8.6%), Chrome Mobile and QQ Mobile (both 8.3%).
Programming Languages : C++ (24.5%) and C (21.7%) are the most popular, followed by Java (12.3%) and C# (10.8%). Matlab is favored in academia and research, Objective‑C has a small share, and Delphi is declining.
The report concludes that a detailed understanding of programmers’ demographics and technology preferences can help society and industry better serve this vital group.
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