China internet stats - more than 450m users

January 19, 2011 6:20 PM

According to official Chinese stats, make of them what you will, there are now 457 million internet users in China. They are said to include 450m who have broadband, and 303m who use mobile internet. 304m play online games, 140m use online banking, and 63m microblog. These users are estimated to spend an average of 18 hours a week online. As a benchmark, the current US population is estimated at 312m.
posted by philipy (26 comments total)

So how does this compare on per capita basis do another nations? What is the rate of growth? At what point will they reach broadband penetration comparable to world leaders like Korea or Norway?
posted by modernnomad at 6:33 PM on January 19, 2011

that benchmark is decidedly an odd inclusion.
posted by wilful at 6:37 PM on January 19, 2011

With a population of 1.346 billion, that 457 million is 34% of the population. I'd like to see some apples-to-apples comparisons with other countries too. I'd also like to know, with a per capita income that has only recently gotten over 10% of the U.S.'s, how can that many people in China afford broadband and mobile internet?
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:40 PM on January 19, 2011

benchmark is decidedly an odd inclusion

It's odd if you are interested in the rate of penetration, as obviously it's not a like for like comparison. The point was more to give a sense of the scale and importance of online China, something that doesn't seem to figure in our consciousness much.

I'd be very interested to hear if anyone can shed light on whether the published stats are all that they seem.
posted by philipy at 6:47 PM on January 19, 2011

I'm sure this is unrelated to US officials wanting the ability to shut the Internet down.
posted by DU at 6:49 PM on January 19, 2011

PSHAW. 18 hours a week?

Here at mefi we got 18 hours a day.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 6:52 PM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'd also like to know, with a per capita income that has only recently gotten over 10% of the U.S.'s, how can that many people in China afford broadband and mobile internet?

Stuff's cheaper there.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:58 PM on January 19, 2011

So that's why my connection is so slow.
posted by bwg at 7:02 PM on January 19, 2011

For people who wanted the US usage data, according to Pew Research reports from mid-2010, around 66% of Americans have broadband at home, and 59% are considered to have mobile access.

This is still not exactly a like-for-like comparison of data though.
posted by philipy at 7:04 PM on January 19, 2011

nah philipy, it's odd because the US is not the centre of the universe, and the US population is about as relevant as the population of India, and a less relevant metric than, say, the population of China.
posted by wilful at 7:05 PM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

...it's odd because the US is not the centre of the universe...

Whoa whoa whoa whoa, that's a big ole [citation needed] right there.

Also, you misspelled "center."
posted by griphus at 7:15 PM on January 19, 2011 [17 favorites]

the US is not the centre of the universe

I know this.

But I also know that if I want people to understand a piece of data, it helps to show it in comparison to something that those same people have a good feel for.

As it happens I'm not in the US myself.
posted by philipy at 7:15 PM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa

I believe according to cosmology, the US is the center of the universe.

And so is everywhere else.

posted by philipy at 7:17 PM on January 19, 2011

It's a very common benchmark that's been repeated since 1820 (though the comparisons were between Britain and China). So kind of the opposite of odd.

I've had to wait for someone to finish up internetting before I could buy something from a shop keeper many times, so I'm not surprised at these stats.

I find the socially based internet applications that are used to be more advanced than what we have in the Western World, to be honest. The integration of chat, blogs, and games in that QQ thing offers a much more technically advanced version of Flickr, wordpress.org, and Facebook. I lived with someone that used QQ constantly and I was frequently impressed with its capabilities.
posted by sleslie at 7:23 PM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

sleslie, maybe in your country...
posted by wilful at 7:34 PM on January 19, 2011

sleslie: “It's a very common benchmark that's been repeated since 1820 (though the comparisons were between Britain and China).”

"In 1820, there were 0 million internet users in China. By comparison, there were a lot more people in Britain."

okay I know that's not what you meant but it would be funny
posted by koeselitz at 7:49 PM on January 19, 2011 [3 favorites]

And I bet that half of those Chinese computers are infected by spambots.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:51 PM on January 19, 2011

spambot is a Gamma World staple.
posted by clavdivs at 8:34 PM on January 19, 2011

Wow. This internet, that the English and Chinese users are both on, it's not really very "inter", is it? I'm imagining these enormous masses of people, one each for English, Chinese, Indian, et cetera, all densely interconnected internally but with only a few sparse strands (in comparison with total mass) connecting each to one another.

And, I'm guessing, the connecting strands are much more one-way inbound for the English mass than for most of the others. In other words, our notorious disinterest in learning other languages makes us sort of a fishbowl to the rest of the internet world -- they can see what we're doing, but we can't see what they're doing.

For example, I have no idea whatsoever what all those Chinese users do with their internets that might be different than what we do, if anything, but it seems like an question of obvious importance. Anyone here have any idea?
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 9:37 PM on January 19, 2011 [5 favorites]

MetaFilter has approximately 49,000 registered users.

I think that means we're likely to be taken over by Joliet, Illinois. (Or Cairns QLD, or Dundee Scotland, because not all warlike cities with a population of 147 are in the USA.)
posted by not_on_display at 10:07 PM on January 19, 2011

Wow. This internet, that the English and Chinese users are both on, it's not really very "inter", is it? I'm imagining these enormous masses of people, one each for English, Chinese, Indian

This is definitely true. The internet is divided between languages. The portuguese internet is different from the english with different memes, different universally visited websites and so on.
posted by Catfry at 10:54 PM on January 19, 2011

Top 100 visited sites in China.

This is definitely true. The internet is divided between languages. The portuguese internet is different from the english with different memes, different universally visited websites and so on.

Definitely seems true for the English world, as I imagined.

Top 100 visited sites in the United States, the almost identical top 100 sites in the UK, and the little less identical but still pretty similar top 100 sites in Australia.

via Alexa
posted by Defenestrator at 12:44 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Usual caveats needed for Alexa figures - it's based on the activity of people who use the Alexa toolbar and other Alexa add-ons, and their behaviour isn't necessarily representative of all internet users. - Wikipedia article.

Although having said that Google Ad Planner's figures for China give Facebook as the most visited site, so that's clearly not a reliable source either!
posted by DanCall at 1:05 AM on January 20, 2011

It's odd if you are interested in the rate of penetration, as obviously it's not a like for like comparison. The point was more to give a sense of the scale and importance of online China, something that doesn't seem to figure in our consciousness much.

Well, I'm sure that's important to the Chinese, but sine there really isn't that much international content mixing -- Chinese internet users are important to other Chinese internet users. But to us? Not all that much, there's no real impact on our lives.
posted by delmoi at 4:18 AM on January 20, 2011

...there are now 457 million internet users in China.
And about 200 million of those seem to be spammers. Not as bad a ratio as India, though.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:55 AM on January 20, 2011

Defenestrator: "Top 100 visited sites in the United States"

...why is Yahoo's entry messed up?
#3: anshikapackersmovers
yahoo.com
providing you the best possible solutions for all kind of relocation such as home relocation, c...
posted by Gordafarin at 8:07 AM on January 21, 2011