DD:In China, 111 million Net users counted.
by Reuters , CNET News.com | Published: 1/18/06
Survey reports 18 percent rise in country's users last year. That's still only 8.5 percent of China's population. News provided by:
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The number of Web users in China, the world's second-largest Internet market, grew by 18 percent in 2005 to 111 million, the Economic Daily reported Wednesday.
Some 8.5 percent of the country's 1.3 billion people now have access to the Internet, the newspaper reported, citing a survey released by the China Internet Network Information Center.
State media previously predicted that 120 million Chinese people would be surfing the Web by the end of 2005, as computers find their way into more homes and domestic telecommunications networks grow.
The 2005 gains were higher than those in 2004, when the number of Internet users grew 16 percent to 94 million.
More than half of China's Web population--or about 64 million people--accessed the Web via broadband connections, suggesting a 50 percent increase from 2004, as China strongly promotes the development of its broadband networks.
The Internet's explosive growth in China has come despite the government's stepped-up efforts to control the medium, in which occasional pockets of free speech have appeared in chat sites and blogs.
China has the world's No. 2 PC market, with nearly 16 million units shipped in 2004 and that number expected to have grown another 13 percent last year, according to data-tracking firm IDC.
PC makers such as industry leaders Lenovo Group and Dell shipped 5.2 million units in the third quarter of 2005, according to IDC.
The growth of the Internet has also spawned a growing number of local online players, including Yahoo-invested e-commerce firm Alibaba.com, Web portal Sina, online game firm Shanda Interactive Entertainment and online search firm Baidu.com.
Major mutlinationals attracted by the market's big growth potential have also set up shop in China, including online auctioneer eBay, online retailer Amazon.com. and online search leader Google.
