China is now second only to the United States in the number of home internet users

Tuesday, 23 April, 2002

China has moved into second place in the number of people logging on to the internet from home, according to a study.

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, China is now second only to the United States in the number of home internet users.

Nearly 57 million people in China have web access at home, the report said.

[...]The new figure, released in the US on Monday, says that just over 5% of China's more than one billion people can reach the internet from home.

'Staggering' potential

A far higher percentage of people are logging on from homes in Japan, Germany and the UK, but China's population outweighs the overall figures in those countries. The US has the world's most home users, with 166 million people logging on at home.

Nielsen/NetRatings says internet subscriptions in China are growing by 5-6% every month and in just three or four years 25% of the population could have internet access. That is more than 250 million people.

"The potential is staggering," said Nielsen/NetRatings managing director Hugh Bloch.

[...]The survey randomly interviewed 1,000 households in mainland China with fixed telephone lines.

[...]But it also tries to maintain strict control over what its citizens read on the net, blocking access to certain internet domains such as bbc.co.uk.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1945000/1945275.stm