Culture

China Has a 137 Million Webheads

It’s official. In just a few years, the total number of Internet users in China will likely overtake the number of U.S. users. According to a report released today by the PEW Internet Project, there are currently 137 million Internet users in China, second to the U.S.’s estimated 165-210 million. But growth in China is, […]

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It’s official. In just a few years, the total number of Internet users in China will likely overtake the number of U.S. users. According to a report released today by the PEW Internet Project, there are currently 137 million Internet users in China, second to the U.S.’s estimated 165-210 million. But growth in China is, to put it mildly, friggin’ astounding: tens of MILLIONS of new users every year. Not surprisingly, the majority of Chinese who are not online are in rural areas. Interestingly -- and not so surprisingly -- mobile madness is rapidly spreading out of the cities:

“New rural subscribers represented half of China Mobile’s 53 million new mobile phone subscribers in 2006, which now account for upwards of a staggering 300 million China Mobile phone accounts nationwide.”

What’s this mean? Well, with so many country-folks going mobile, they may very well leapfrog desktop PCs and an internet infrastructure altogether.

Here’s a pdf of the full report.

And here’s some food for thought…

“…because the Chinese share a single written language, despite the multiplicity of spoken tongues, [the Internet] could have a unifying effect on the country's widely dispersed citizenry.”

Cool.

(image via CNN)