The Chinese registration organisation, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) reported that the number of net users grew 53 per cent in the past year from 137 million.
The official Xinhua News Agency said this means China is just 5 million users behind the United States.
China still has a lot of room to grow, Xinhua said the country has an internet penetration rate of just 16 per cent – about the level Australian penetration was at a decade ago. In the US, about 75 per cent of Adults are online.
The rate of computer ownership in China also remains low. The main access point for the internet in China remains Cybercafes, whereas in the US 93 per cent of users have access to the net through home computers.
The CNNIC has also reported the numbers of blogs in China had grown to nearly 73 million at the end of November, with the number of bloggers measured at 47 million.
The organisation said blogging was a fast growing phenomenon. A year ago there were just 17.5 million bloggers – meaning 30 million new bloggers had joined the blogosphere in just 12 months.
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