Tuesday 22 April 2008

Chinese web users career towards web domination

Chinese Web User From USA today 21.04.08

BEIJING — China, already the world leader in cellphone use, has surpassed the USA as the No. 1 nation in Internet users.

The number of Chinese on the Internet hit more than 220 million as of February, according to estimates from official Chinese statistics by the Beijing-based research group BDA China. The government is likely to confirm the leap at its half-yearly report in July.

The longtime Internet leader, the USA, which founded and developed the network of computers, had 216 million users at the end of 2007, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

The percentage of American users — 71% — still exceeds China's 17%. China has 1.3 billion people, compared with nearly 304 million in the USA.

Given the meteoric growth the China has seen in recent years, perhaps this isn’t such a surprise after all. And, of course, from a percentage standpoint, the number of Chinese internet users is still relatively small. Nevertheless, as China continues its single-track path towards its position as a massive world superpower, this might not remain so for much longer.

And by the way, I had a lot of difficulty deciding on a suitable heading for this post.  In the end, I plumbed with an attention-grabbing sensationalist headline.  Apologies in advance. 

4 comments:

  1. When I saw this headline in my rss reader, I could hardly wait for the text to load. What a let-down.

    xiaoneiis heading towards world domination probably. :p

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  2. Yeah, sorry about that, Andro. Law Actually is getting more tabloid-ish by the day!

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  3. They may have more net users, however seeming as the chinese government tend to censure anything they don't like I wonder what they are actually viewing?

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  4. forgive my non existant spelling powers

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