China Now Has Over 500 Million Net Users [CHART]

via China Daily

We knew it was coming, but we didn’t think it would come so fast! At his keynote at the China-UK Internet Roundtable in Beijing yesterday, Wang Chen (the minister of the State Information Office) announced that China now has over 500,000,000 net users. And — of course — that number is still growing.

China’s massive population means that even with more net users than any other country in the world, internet penetration is still below 40 percent, which means there’s still tons of room to grow. Many developed countries have rates above 75 percent, and much of northern Europe enjoys penetration rates of over 90 percent.

Wang also noted that China now has 130,000,000 rural net users, accounting for about 27 percent of its total internet population. Obviously, there’s a lot of room to grow there, too, but given the rising numbers of people connecting to the internet via cell phones — which are just as omnipresent in the countryside as anywhere else these days — I imagine rural numbers will keep growing steadily even in areas where the installation of broadband infrastructure is not a priority.

Wang’s remarks have been posted in full by the China Daily, so if you’re a fan of official speeches — who isn’t? — you can click here to bathe yourself in inspiring oratory.

Otherwise, check out this pretty graphic of internet user numbers around the world circa June of this year. That’s right, China’s gained an additional 15 million internet users since June. Hardcore.

[Date from Internet World Stats]