829 million Chinese have internet access, double the population of the US

On November 19, 2018, in the e-commerce service station of Gulougou Village, Peng’an County, Sichuan Province, a staff is busy picking up agricultural and sideline products purchased from poor households, which would be sold through e-commerce channels after packaging. (Guo Anping Zhou Liang / People’s daily online

The number of Chinese internet users hits 829 million at the end of 2018, more than double the population of the US. According to the report published by the China Internet Network Information Center, 817 million Chinese use smartphones to surf the internet, accounting for 98.6 percent of the total netizens.

The largest group of Chinese netizens is of students, accounting for 25%, followed by self-employed and freelancers for 20% and enterprise staff for 12.9%. Net users with a monthly salary between 2,001 yuan ($299) and 5,000 yuan accounted for 36.7 percent of the total, while the group of net users earning more than 5,000 yuan a month accounted for 24 percent. The amount of short video platform users reached 648 million by the end of 2018, accounting for 78 percent of the total.

However, there are still 562 million people in China isolated from the online world, with most living in rural regions. Low education level and insufficient internet surfing skills are the main obstacles blocking them from accessing the internet, the report said.

(People’s daily & Global Times)