unCubeme

According to PCWorld, there are now 162 million Chinese citizens online. The growth of Chinese Internet users is staggering, having increased 31.7 percent in the last year. If you work out those numbers, there were 123 million Internet users in China last June. I don’t think that this comes as a surprise to anyone given that China has roughly four times as many people as the United States and wealth is increasing quickly in China.

One reason for the nearly 40 million user increase is a modification of how the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) defines and Internet user. Before, an Internet user was defined as someone who spends at least one hour per week online; now, “Internet user” describes anyone who has accessed the Internet within the past six months.

eFluxMedia reports that “there were roughly 100 new Internet users every single minute for the past 6 months in the world’s most populous country.” The Internet population is also very young. 35.8 percent of the Internet users in China are under 24 years old. Perhaps more interesting is how they spend their time:

“About 75 percent read online news and used search engines for information, while more than 60 percent regarded online music and videos as an important source of entertainment.

Only 21 percent used e-banking services, and 3.9 percent booked tickets through the Internet.”