At the end of last year, the number of Internet users in China
reached 33.7 million, up 49.8 percent over the year before, says a
report on China's Internet industry issued in Beijing on Tuesday.
The report, released by the China Internet Network Information
Center (CNNIC),
says China has 12.54 million computers linked to the Internet, an
increase of 40.6 percent over the same period in 2000, while
China's Internet's bandwidth has increased from 2,799 M in 2000 to
the current 7,679.5 M.
The report of the ninth comprehensive survey conducted by CNNIC
which started in early December, covers two aspects, namely, the
general development of the Internet in China and information about
Chinese Internet surfers.
According to the report, China has 277,100 "www" websites, of
which, 20.6 percent are Beijing-based with those based in Qinghai
and Ningxia in west
China accounting for only 0.2 percent. In addition, Beijing
also ranks highest in terms of the number of domain names with 33.8
percent of domain names being registered by entities or individuals
in Beijing.
The report shows that the proportion of female surfers continues to
increase and now makes up 40 percent, and the number of surfers
with low education is up, which indicates that the Internet is now
coming closer to everyone.
The report also offers some interesting figures about the behavior
of Chinese Internet surfers. Chinese surfers spend 8.3 hours on the
Internet every week on average, the period from 8 pm to 11 pm being
their prime surfing time and the major purpose of their surfing is
to obtain information or to have fun.
Since 1997, CNNIC has conducted surveys on China's Internet
development and released reports twice a year.
(China
Daily January 16, 2002)