CHINA OVERTAKES US AS WORLD'S BIGGEST USER OF INTERNET
Jane Maccartney
The Times, April 24, 2008
China has overtaken the US as the world’s biggest user of the Internet, thanks to an increasingly web savvy population that has soared by more than 61 per cent in the last year.
More than 221 million Chinese were online at the end of February compared to 137 million at the start of 2007, tying for first place with the United States. But experts say that the number is sure to have risen steeply in the last few weeks, placing China in an undisputed number one position.
Despite the substantial increase,Internet penetration in China remains low given the size of the population - just 16 per cent of the country’s 1.3 billion are online compared with a world average of 19 per cent.
But experts say the number is set to swell rapidly in the next few years as the hundreds of millions of Chinese still toiling as low-paid farmers or as labourers see a rise in their incomes that will enable them, too, to afford to go online. Indeed, BDA China, a Beijing technology company, estimates China’s web population will grow by about 18 per cent a year, putting the total at 490 million by 2012 - a number larger than the entire population of the United States.
For Chinese, the Internet is increasingly becoming their preferred means of communication, their top source of information and their favourite point of reference for entertainment.
Huge numbers of Chinese choose to communicate via online instant messaging, finding the method cheaper than using the telephone and also a useful way to hide their identity when meeting new people.
The power and popularity of instant messaging was seen across China this week when one young man, in a show of patriotism amid international criticism of Beijing’s human rights record in Tibet, designed a red heart to show his love of his country. The heart was quickly picked up across nation and appeared on Microsoft MSN’s popular instant messenger service. More than seven million users have now added the little red heart at the start of their Internet messenger signature.
(...) [artículo aquí]
Jane Maccartney
The Times, April 24, 2008
China has overtaken the US as the world’s biggest user of the Internet, thanks to an increasingly web savvy population that has soared by more than 61 per cent in the last year.
More than 221 million Chinese were online at the end of February compared to 137 million at the start of 2007, tying for first place with the United States. But experts say that the number is sure to have risen steeply in the last few weeks, placing China in an undisputed number one position.
Despite the substantial increase,Internet penetration in China remains low given the size of the population - just 16 per cent of the country’s 1.3 billion are online compared with a world average of 19 per cent.
But experts say the number is set to swell rapidly in the next few years as the hundreds of millions of Chinese still toiling as low-paid farmers or as labourers see a rise in their incomes that will enable them, too, to afford to go online. Indeed, BDA China, a Beijing technology company, estimates China’s web population will grow by about 18 per cent a year, putting the total at 490 million by 2012 - a number larger than the entire population of the United States.
For Chinese, the Internet is increasingly becoming their preferred means of communication, their top source of information and their favourite point of reference for entertainment.
Huge numbers of Chinese choose to communicate via online instant messaging, finding the method cheaper than using the telephone and also a useful way to hide their identity when meeting new people.
The power and popularity of instant messaging was seen across China this week when one young man, in a show of patriotism amid international criticism of Beijing’s human rights record in Tibet, designed a red heart to show his love of his country. The heart was quickly picked up across nation and appeared on Microsoft MSN’s popular instant messenger service. More than seven million users have now added the little red heart at the start of their Internet messenger signature.
(...) [artículo aquí]
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