A Xinhua article written in rather pleasant Chinglish has the following stats about Internet useage in China:
– On December 31, 2003 there were 79.5 million Internet users in China, still number 2 after the USA.
– The number is growing by 55,900 each day.
– There were 595,550 websites in China and 30.89 million computers linked to the Internet.
– China’s Internet users are mainly single males under 35. However the number of married female users older than 35 is growing.
– Low-income people with an education below undergraduate are the majority while netizens with postgraduate education and an income above 2,000 Yuan are growing. (This sounds a little odd.)
– People us the Internet mainly at home
– Number of broadband Internet users: approaching 17.4 million.
– What do netizens do on the Internet? According to the report, emailing and getting news are still the principle reasons, but an important change in the 2003 was that on-line shopping, short messages services and on-line games grew rapidly.
– A new online game appears every 10 days: Online games have become the principle reason that many young people get on line. According to the data provided by General Administration of Press and Publication, it examined and approved 37 on-line games in the year 2003.
The data come from the 13th report on China’s Internet industry by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), released on January 15. It was published on People’s Daily website; you can find the English article on Xinhua’s English site here.