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China's online population, already the world's
largest, has swelled to 253 million, an official report said, driven
by news events such as natural disasters and the Beijing Olympics.
The number of Internet surfers in China grew by 56 percent in the
year to the end of June, the government-linked China Internet
Network Information Centre said in its latest half-yearly report
posted on its website Thursday.
Online music, news and instant messaging were the most popular
applications, it said.
Readers of online news hit 206 million in the first half of this
year, compared with 155 million in the second half of 2007, said the
report.
"A series of significant news incidents that took place (meant)
more netizens looked for related information on the Internet,"
it said.
Natural disasters such as snow storms during the Lunar New Year
holiday and the earthquake that hit Sichuan province in May were
huge news events online, along with news of the Olympics that start
on August 8.
People younger than 30 accounted for 69 percent of total Internet
users, the report found, adding that 29 percent of users accessed
the Internet with mobile phones, reflecting the rapid growth of
cellphone subscribers to 601 million at the end of June.
The report said that with 19 percent of the 1.3 billion population
accessing the Internet, China lagged the global average of 21
percent.
While the fast-growing online population has made the Internet a new
forum for Chinese to express opinions in a manner rarely seen on the
strictly government-controlled traditional media, the communist
government does attempt to keep tight controls on how it is used.
President Hu Jintao called last year for efforts to
"purify" the Internet, and in March the authorities
introduced a licensing system in the online video service sector in
the latest example of tightened government control.
--AFP
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