Invite colleagues
The number of internet users in China is now greater than the entire population of the United States, after rising to 338 million by the end of June. China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) reported this week that China added 40 million users in the first six months of 2009 to reach a total of 338 million Internet users by June 30, up 13.4% from late 2008.
Domestic broadband users hit 320 million by June 30, accounting for 94.7% of total Internet users and up 3.7 percentage points from late 2008. Mobile Internet users grew 32.1% in the first half to 155 million, or 46% of all Internet users, CNNIC said citing the influence of 3G. China added 16.2 million Internet users in the first quarter of 2009 to reach a total of 316 million, including 117.6 million mobile Internet users.
The number of Internet users shopping online grew by 14 million in the first half of 2009 to 87.88 million. A total of 23.7 million Chinese were using online payment services by June, up 4.8 percent points from six months ago.
Music, entertainment and information are the three most common uses of the Internet, with over 50% penetration rate among all users, according to the report. The most popular application, online music users grew by 16.1% in the six month period, while online video users increased by 10%. China had registered 12.96 million.cn domain names by late June.
Online gaming gained 30 million users during the half year period, while blogger’s hit 181 million. Online travel booking lost users in the first half due to the economy downtown, the report said.
Entertainment, Online Research & Communication account for over 50% of all online activities.
Online Shopping & Payment are still comparatively low.
The report outlined the online activities as:
- Music: 85.5%
- Network News: 78.7%
- Instant Messaging: 72.2%
- Search Engines: 69.4%
- Video: 65.8%
- Online Gaming: 64.2%
- Email: 55.4%
- Having Blogs: 53.8%
- Forum/BBS: 30.4%
- Online Shopping: 26%
- Online Payment: 22.4%
- Online Stock Speculation: 10.4%
- Travel Reservation: 4.1%
This list as well as additional charts can be found on the CNNIC site in their full report (read it here). Given this growth in Internet useage, many in the blogging community have reported on this report. Please check out some other posts from Digital East Asia, 3Wan, East-West Connect, and Web2Asia.
This now far exceeds any other market in terms of internet usage and given we have seen only a relatively small penetration of the population using the Internet, I suggest we will see similar growth rates for the next few years.
Written on Wednesday, 02 September 2009 13:53 by Matt McDougall
