Year to year statistics released by a State Council think tank reveal Internet users in China grew from 2.4 million at the beginning of 1999 to 8.9 by year's end. That represents a 270% growth rate year-on-year and it appears to be consistent--between July 1999 and the beginning of this year the increase was over 122%.

      The demographics also reveal a change in the typical Chinese Internet user. The vast majority remain young (under 35) and single (64%). But there are more women using the Internet (men decreased from 86% of all Internet users to 79%) and most now access the Internet from home and pay for the service themselves. Only a year ago fully half of all Internet users accessed from the office. Almost 20% of Chinese Internet users have personal web pages.

      Internet business is exploding in China with a 186% jump in the number of Chinese web sites (from 5300 in 1999 to over 15,153 today). Over ten percent (10%) of Chinese Internet users access the web from an Internet café. The centers of China's Internet economy are the most connected cities and regions. Beijing leads the pack with over 20% of China's Internet population, followed by the prosperous, high-flying southern province Guangdong (just under 13%), and Shanghai (over 11%). Shanghai has 158% more people on the Internet today than this time last year. Other high concentrations of Internet users are economically advanced Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, and Liaoning provinces.

       The figures released by the China Internet Network Information Center are based on a survey of Internet users conducted last December 1999. The accuracy of the data was greatly enhanced by a much larger valid sample of survey respondents.

       In general, Chinese use the Internet for email and for information. And the most prevalent form of information is news (65.5%). Most Chinese choose their Internet Service Provider (ISP) by how fast a connection they offer and the most important single issue relating to China's growing Internet is slow access speed. According to the study, almost 12% of respondents had their systems hacked. Interestingly, no less than 47.35% admitted that they never changed their system or computer passwords. A surprisingly high number of Chinese click on on-line banner ads (49%). The biggest concern about ecommerce is the security of the transaction (52%).

       Of the most popular web sites visited by Chinese Internet users, six are well-known American brands. Coming in as the fifth most popular site is Yahoo, followed by Hotmail, tech firms Microsoft and IBM, the website of the National Basketball Association, and Disney's general portal, the Go network.

      For a list of the 50 most popular web sites in China, see the links at the left!

Based on details released by the China Internet Network Information Center and Sinomania! research ©Sinomania!com, 1999-2000. All rights reserved.