January 16, 2009 by Matt Thomas
If any of you were having doubts about just how big an online market China has become, let me put it into perspective for you. According to the China Internet Network Information Center, China currently have 298 million citizens online, that’s around the total population of the US.
Amazingly, only 22.6 percent of China’s total population are actually online currently. That number is rising year on year meaning that these already impressive figures are set to grow and grow.
Obviously there are still a great many rural and poor Chinese people who have little hope of ever using a computer, let alone the internet. For this reason, China is unlikely to get to the percentages of people online enjoyed by most western countries. Even so, if the number only ever rose to 30 percent that would still make it the largest domestic market in the world, with around 400 million eager consumers online.
The 298 million number represents a 41.9 percent spike from last year. In addition to the general proliferation of the internet in China, the Chinese authorities are putting the increase down to an explosion last year in the number of people accessing the internet via mobile devices like iPhones.
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