538 million Internet users, mobile access most common

CNNIC

Various numbers about China’s Internet, telecoms and media have been released over the last week or so. CNNIC, a government body that issues reports and statistics on the Chinese Internet, released its mid year report.

Some numbers from the report:

The total number of Internet users reached 538 million (about 40% of the population) by June, up from 513 million in December 2011.

388 million people use mobile phones to get online; the report emphasizes that mobile devices are now far and away the most common way Chinese people get online.

There are 146 million ‘village netizens’(农村网民) or Internet users in rural areas.

The report also notes that the proportion of Internet users who use Internet cafes to get online is going down, to 25.8% of all users, from 27.9% in 2011. The average Internet user in China spends 19.9 hours online per week.

You can download the whole report here (Chinese only). The Global Times has an English summary here.

Marbridge Consulting summarized announcements from China’s big three telecom operators concerning their subscriber numbers as of June 2012:

China Mobile: 683.08 million mobile subscribers
China Unicom: 219.25 million
China Telecom: 144.18 million
Total: 1.046 billion subscriptions

Total 3G subscriptions in China: 175.57 million, of which China Mobile has 38.21%, China Unicom 32.77%, and China Telecom 29.03%

The General Administration of Press and Publishing (GAPP), the government regulator that controls print publications, news publishing and electronic games, released a report on the journalism and publishing industry in 2011, summarized by CMMI here. The report says that ‘China’s journalism publishing, printing and distribution sectors earned RMB1.46 trillion last year, a year-on-year increase of 17.7%’.

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