Statistical report on Internet development in China(January 2017)

Basic Information

◇ Up to December 2016, China had 731 million Internet users, with a yearly increase of 42.99 million. The Internet penetration rate reached 53.2 percent, up 2.9 percentage points from the end of 2015.

◇ As of December 2016, the number of mobile Internet users in China reached 695 million, an increase of 75.50 million from the end of 2015. Mobile netizens accounted for 95.1 percent of the total netizen population, while this percentage was 90.1 percent in 2015.

◇ Up to December 2016, Chinese rural netizens accounted for 27.4 percent of the national total, reaching 201 million, up by 5.26 million from the end of 2015.

◇ As of December 2016, the proportion of Chinese netizens using desktops or laptops to access the Internet was 60.1 percent and 36.8 percent respectively. The utilization ratio of mobile phones as a means to access the Internet was 5.0 percentage points more than that at the end of 2015, reaching 95.1 percent, and this percentage was 31.5 percent for tablet computers and 25.0 percent for TV.

◇ Up to December 2016, China had a total of 42.28 million domain names, of which 20.61 million or 48.7 percent were ended with “.CN”, and 474,000 were suffixed with “.中国”.

◇ As of December 2016 China had a total of 4.82 million websites, of which 2.59 million were under “.CN”.

◇ Up to December 2016, 99.0 percent of Chinese companies used computers for their office work and 95.6 percent were Internet users; 93.7 percent of them accessed Internet via fixed broadband and 32.3 percent via mobile broadband; 45.3 percent of them were engaged in online sales and 45.6 percent in online purchase, and 38.7 percent launched online marketing and promotional activities.