China’s booming Internet population has surpassed the US to become the world’s biggest, with 253 million people online despite government controls on Web use, according to government data reported yesterday.
The latest figure on Web use at the end of last month is a 56 percent increase from a year ago, the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) said. It said the share of the Chinese public using the Internet is still just 19.1 percent, leaving more room for rapid growth.
The US had an estimated 223.1 million Internet users last month, said Nielsen Online, a research firm. The Pew Internet and American Life Project puts US online penetration at 71 percent.
“This is the first time the number has drastically surpassed the United States, becoming the world’s No. 1,” a CINIC statement said.
The government encourages Internet use for business and education but tries to block access to Web sites deemed pornographic or subversive.
Web surfers have been jailed for posting or e-mailing material that criticizes the government or is deemed a violation of vague national security laws.
Beijing blocks access to Web sites run by dissidents, human rights groups and some foreign news media. Web surfers were blocked from seeing Google Inc’s YouTube and other foreign sites with video footage of anti-government protests in Tibet in March.
That same month, the government said it would shut down 25 Chinese video sites and punish 32 others for violating new rules against carrying content that is deemed pornographic, violent or a threat to national security.
In financial terms, China’s market lags those of the US, South Korea and other economies. But online commerce, video sharing and other businesses are growing rapidly and have raised millions of dollars from investors.
The commercial boom has produced success stories such as games site Tencent.com and search engine Baidu.com, which are competing with foreign rivals for local market share.
Baidu said on Thursday its profits in the latest quarter soared 87 percent over the year-earlier period to 265 million yuan (US$38.6 million).
Total revenues for China’s Internet companies soared to 40.5 billion yuan last year, up 48.6 percent from the previous year, the research firm Analysys International reported this week.
It said revenues should keep growing at an annual rate of at least 30 percent in coming years, reaching 137.5 billion yuan by 2010.
By contrast, US online advertising revenues alone last year were US$21.2 billion, according to a report by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
The research firm BDA China Ltd says China’s online population should keep growing by 18 percent annually, reaching 490 million by 2012 — a number larger than the entire US population.
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