China’s online population to become world’s largest

The number of Internet users in China is slowly, but surely, catching up with those in the U.S., according to new figures released by the China Internet Network Information Centre.

by Helen Leggatt

china%20flag.jpg China’s internet population grew by 18 percent in 2004 and 2005, and 23 percent in 2006. A CNNIC official has been reported as saying that, by 2009, China will have the world’s largest Internet population.

Current Chinese government statistics put the online population, as of June 2007, at just over 160 million. Over 25 million new Chinese users have gone online since the end of 2006, that’s about 100 new users every minute. The U.S. internet population currently stands at around 211 million.

The question is, will the demographic change in Internet landscape have any knock-on effects? In an interesting article, entitled ‘Bone up on your Mandarin, kids, China is wise to the web’, John Naughton of The Observer wrote, “What will be the impact on the rest of us? Will Chinese become the lingua franca of the web? Hard to say, but this might be a good time to invest in companies offering good online translation technologies.”

The CNNIC’s report also found the number of .cn domain names now exceeds Chinese .com domain names for the first time.

Internet penetration in China remains limited to urban areas, with just 3 percent of rural Chinese online, compared to 61 percent in the U.S. Chinese users are predominately made up of urban males who are either students or business users.