Chinese Internet Usage Snapshot

China on track to become the world’s biggest internet market.

Trend Description

The Pew research group has just released a study (PDF) outlining the growth of internet users in China today. The study estimates there are now 137 million internet users. This places China second only to the US, which has an estimated online population of between 165 and 210 million. ComScore estimated the global online population at 694 million last May.

The growth in Chinese users is fast outpacing the growth in the US, and China is projected to have the world’s largest online popluation within a few years. The total number of China’s netizens grew by 18% in 2004 and 2005, and 23% in 2006.

Although China’s huge economy and rapidly growing user base has been a big target for online businesses, the internet market has remained difficult to enter and penetrate. These problems have largely been cultural and political, rather than technical. eBay was close to selling off its Chinese operations after facing cultural problems and stiff competition from Chinese site Tom.com, which coincidentally distributes Skype. That rumored sale became a partnership and relaunch this summer. Search engines, most notably Google, have had difficult ethical decisions to make related to China’s political restrictions on information.

Broadband’s increasing growth in China is heartening for bandwidth-intensive programs like Skype and IPTV. Recent numbers estimated China’s broadband population at 56.2 million (US 60.3 million) during Q1 2007. Skype reportedly had over 25 million Chinese users toward the end of last year, growing at 100,000 users a day. This equates to the meteoric growth iLike experienced after launching on Facebook.

Image source: Pew Internet

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