[photopress:china_internet_users.jpg,full,alignright]China’s internet population increased by almost one-third last year, 2006, which makes it one of the most powerful internet economies in the world.
The total number of people using the internet is now 132 million. The number of people accessing the web on high-speed broadband connections also rose rapidly to 52 million.
That is 30% growth in the number of web users in 12 months in a nation of more than 1.3 billion people.
China has the second-largest population of net users in the world after the United States, which has 207 million citizens online. The growth has been driven by the country’s booming economy, as well as the huge number of internet cafes that have made the web popular among ordinary Chinese people.
There are more than a billion internet users around the world although the online growth in the west is slowing. In contrast, the speed of development in countries such as China and India is increasing.
Source: CCTV