Digital home, the networking of digital appliances to create a fully digital home environment, has been brought about by the increasing prevalence of broadband, digital TV, and digitized entertainment. This exploratory study examines Chinese consumer attitudes toward the digital home and its related applications and products.

In-Stat's research shows that wireless LAN is going to dominate the home-network market. Most consumers who do not have home networks at present said they were planning to install wireless home networks.

Of the features that digital home provides, multimedia sharing is currently the most popular. Users want to be able to share multimedia entertainment within their households. This is particularly true in China, where there are abundant sources of online content.

Devices such as media storage, playback equipment, and media PCs are still new on the market, and consumers are not very familiar with them. However, overall reaction is positive: 10%-15% of surveyed consumers said they would buy them. Most do not rule out the idea, but will decide based on the price. Our research shows that consumers generally feel comfortable paying around US$200-$300 for these devices.