China World Leader in Internet Users

Report published by research group has found that China has more Internet users than any other country in the world. Many million Chinese users are getting connected across the country.

Research group, China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) found that number of users in China jumped nearly 42% from 2007 to 298 million by the end of 2008. China has a population of 1.3 billion and the Internet penetration rate rose to 22.6% last year which is slightly higher than the world’s average of 21.9%. In comparison, the US had an estimated 223.1 million Internet users in June 2008 according to research company, Nielson Online. The CNNIC report found that internet use in the Chinese countryside was increasing faster than in the cities. The number of users in the countryside surged 84.6 million – an increase of 60.8% year on year. The number of Chinese users surfing the internet from their mobile phones surged 113% from 2007 to 117.6 million last year. Mobile internet usage is expected to grow explosively over the next years after China recently awarded third generation (3G) licences to three telephone operators. Telephone operator, China Mobile will be spending 58.8 billion yuan this year to expand its 3G network across China. Other operators, China Telecom and China Unicom plan to invest 80 billion yuan and 100 billion yuan respectively, this year. All three operators expect to start 3G services throughout China by 2011. CNNIC report found that the bulk of mobile Internet users are students. The report stated 43.5% of them use their mobile phones to download music, read online news, check email and perform a variety of other tasks.