China’s surfing population soars
There are now almost 80 million people online in China, making it second only to the US in terms of the number of Internet users, says the government funded China Internet Network Information Centre.
In 1997 only 620,000 users were on record. By the end of December, the number had rocketted to 79.5 million, says CNNIC in its 13th semi-annual report.
“About 11.5 million new users were recorded in the second half of last year, a growth higher than the 8.9 million recorded in the first six months of 2003,” says a China Daily report, going on:
“China’s Internet population surpassed Japan by the end of 2002, jumping to the second in the world following the United States. Although large in size, the current number is only 6.2 per cent of the country’s total population.”
There are now almost 60 million websites, and domain names with a “.cn” suffix now number 34 million, says CNNIC.
In 1998, 91% of Chinese surfers were aged between 18 and 30, it states, but by the end of last year, that number had dropped to 51.3 while the percentage of people online younger than 18 had grown to 18.8%.
“Some 14.2 million adults aged older than 35 have joined the army of Internet surfers in the past six months, expanding the group’s share to 17.8 per cent,” says CNNIC. “This group includes some 3 million senior citizens aged 50 and above.
Students and technicians still make up the main body of the Internet community, respectively accounting for 29.2 and 13.7 per cent. The proportion of male and female Internet users remained at about 3:2 during the past two years.”
And if the number of people with Internet connections has risen, so has the amount of time they spend online.
“The average time people spend connected rose to 13.4 hours a week,” says the information centre. “Most, 66.1 per cent, surf the Internet at home.”
What are Chinese Internet users looking for when they go online?
CNNIC says its surveys show most of them use the Web to obtain information, “including news, e-books and daily life information” and, it goes on, “It is interesting that using the Internet for leisure ranks second among users, more than study, getting to know friends, research or sending or receiving e-mails.
“Shopping online or doing other e-businesses accounted for only 0.4 per cent of Internet usage.”
About one third of the population in Beijing and Shanghai are online, but in poorer areas such as Henan, Guizhou and Inner Mongolia, only 3 or 4% use thr Net, says CNNIC, adding, “The gap between the rich and poor is also reflected in the figures. Farmers, for example, account for less than 0.8 per cent of the country’s netizen community.”
