BEIJING: The number of web users in China — already the
world’s largest online population — has risen over 700 million,
authorities said on Wednesday as they seek to turn the internet into a
new growth driver.
The country had 710m internet users —
defined as those who have gone online at least once in the past six
months — by June, up 3.1 per cent from the end of December, the
government-linked China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) said
in a statement.
The number is more than double the
number of people in the United States and means more than half of the
world’s largest national population are now using the internet.
Beijing
imposes strict controls on online content, while e-commerce is a vital
part of its efforts to transform the economy into one driven more by
consumer demand.
The government is pushing for a
so-called “internet plus” project that aims to expand the application of
online technology in industry as part of attempts to modernise. The
CNNIC said that 92.5pc of Chinese users go online through their mobile
phones.
“The social lifestyle formed by the mobile
internet was further developed and the internet plus project facilitated
the government and companies diversifying and mobilising their
services,” it said.
But the number of rural users
remained low — accounting for less than a third of the total — as
residents in the countryside either have no knowledge of computers or
the internet, or are not interested, said the CNNIC.
Several
Chinese tech firms, such as Jack Ma’s Alibaba, have become
multi-billion-dollar giants in recent years as the country’s online
population has boomed.
0 comments:
Post a Comment