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China Hits 538 Million With Increase in Mobile Use
Chinese people line up to buy iPhone 4S in a China Unicom store in the early morning on January. (Feng Li/Getty Images)
China’s massive Internet population has continued to grow, with more than 538 million people connected by the end of June, according to a Chinese government-affiliated research group.
Mobile phones have become the most popular method for users to connect to the Internet, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), which began as a non-profit research group but is now is responsible for Internet affairs under the Chinese regime’s Ministry of Information Industry.
The new overall figures show a jump from the 485 million who were on the Internet a year ago. However, growth has slowed in the past six months with only an increase in around 25 million new Internet users, according to state media.
There are more Chinese Internet users than the combined entire populations of Brazil and the United States, the respective fifth and third largest countries by total population, and the entire population of the European Union, which has around 500 million people.
More than 388 million people used their mobile devices to connect to the Internet and outnumbered desktop users for the first time, according to the report. More than 380 million people accessed the Internet via desktop computers.
“Information spreads faster via the Internet, for example on [microblogging site Sina] Weibo, where users post updates that could affect a lot of people,” Wei Wuhui, an Internet expert with Shanghai Jiaotong University, told the state-run Global Times.
The report also pointed out that 27.7 percent of mobile Internet users watch videos online with mobile devices and cellular phones.
The Chinese Communist Party heavily censors Internet content that it deems subversive or sensitive through the so-called “Great Firewall of China.” Authorities have blocked searches including the Tiananmen Square incident, terms relating to the persecution of adherents of the Falun Gong meditation, and terms relating to a number of rumors.
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