The number of Internet users in China reached 477 million at the end of March 2011, according to government sources. The figure comes from the Telecommunications Administration Bureau, which falls under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The country is already the world’s largest online market, but the new data shows a rapid take […]
The number of Internet users in China reached 477 million at the end of March 2011, according to government sources. The figure comes from the Telecommunications Administration Bureau, which falls under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The country is already the world’s largest online market, but the new data shows a rapid take up of new web users in the past three months alone.
The number of people using the Internet in China had hit 457 million at the end of 2010, meaning that more than one-third of its 1.3 billion-strong population were online.
The new figure suggests that China added 20 million users in a three-month period.
The previous figure, estimated by the government-linked China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), put the Web populace at 457 million at the end of 2010.
Past reports by the CNNIC show that each year, China’s Internet population has surged in numbers. In 2010, the country added 73 million Web users. The year before that, the number of Web users grew by 86 million.
The CNNIC, however, defines Web users as Chinese residents over the age of 6, who have gone online at least once in the past 6 months.
However, internet marketing research firm comScore provides more conservative numbers. Counting users over 14, who have gone online either through a home or work computer in the past month, comScore said this month that China had only 304.2 million Web users.
But in another estimate this month, comScore said China’s Internet population is at 415.6 million. This figure includes people who access the Web through Internet cafes or public computers, it said.
In spite of the differing estimates, the business community still sees China emerging as the world’s largest Internet market
The growing strength and influence of the web population has prompted concern in Beijing about the Internet’s potential as a tool for generating social unrest, and authorities have stepped up surveillance in recent years. The government blocks web content that it deems politically sensitive in a vast system dubbed the “Great Firewall of China”.
