Internet in The People's Republic of China - Users

Users

In 2003, Internet activists and journalists led an online uprising that eventually forced the abolishment of the Custody and repatriation procedure and the establishment of the constitutional committee in the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. In June, 2006, New York Times reported the online throngs and Internet hunting fought corruptions but also led to violence.

The June 2007 China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) report states that 54.9% Internet users are male, 57.9% are unmarried, and 51.2% are under 25 years old. The majority of Internet users have at least a college diploma. Among the users, 36.7% are students, and 25.3% are enterprise staff. 33.9% users earn more than 1500 yuan a month, however, if student users are left out, this percent goes rises to 53.6%. By the end of 2010 China had over 300 million mobile internet users. 60% of them are under age of 30, and 80%, under the age of 40; this makes the average Chinese Internet user much younger than the average Internet user elsewhere in the world.

Based on CNNIC, at the end of 2011 China had 513 million internet users with a penetration rate of only 38.3%, while the United States had a 78.2% internet penetration rate. 69.3 percent of China's internet users connect to the internet via mobile devices.

Majority of Chinese Internet users restrict their use of the Internet to Chinese websites only. This is due to their preference for the Chinese language, and the problems (poor speeds, censorship) in accessing websites hosted outside China. China's Internet is highly internally referential, with fewer than 6% of China's websites linking to outside the country.