More net users in China than U.S.

In January this year I reported that China was on track to becoming the largest online community in the world. It’s happened - China now has more Internet users than the United States, according to Beijing research firm BDA.

BDA’s estimate was based on February’s data from the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) that put the country’s online population at 220 million. The United States’ Internet population was estimated to be 217 million during the same period, putting it behind China for the first time.

"Based on these sources and the assumption that these markets have continued to grow in 2008 to date at the same rates that they grew in 2007, we can conclude that China has by now comfortably surpassed the United States as the world's largest Internet population," BDA analyst Bin Liu said in a statement.

Tags: broadband penetration, China, internet population, U.S.