Jan 24, 2007, 7:45 GMT
Beijing - China is likely to overtake the United States as the world's largest online population within two years, after the estimated number of internet users soared by 23 per cent to 137 million last year, state media said on Wednesday.
'We believe it will take two years at most for China to overtake the United States,' Wang Enhai of the state-run Chinese Internet Network Information Centre told the official China Daily.
'We are expecting even faster growth in 2007 and 2008 given that internet penetration now has exceeded 10.5 percent in the country,' Wang said.
'An increasing number of people are now getting hooked to the Web as PCs and Internet access are becoming affordable and internet-based offerings diversified,' Wang said.
The 2006 estimate was based on telephone interviews with 32,325 Chinese over six years old who use the Internet for an average of at least one hour per week, the information centre said.
The surge in internet usage reflects the growth of e-mail, search engines, e-commerce, weblogs, online news and games in 2006, it said.
Estimated broadband users increased to 90.7 million last year, up 41.1 per cent year-on-year, while 17 million people access the Internet via mobile phones.
The government expects the introduction of faster Internet access through 3G (third generation) mobile telephones to give another boost to the industry.
China had 461 million mobile telephone users at the end of 2006, according the Ministry of Information Industry.
But the newspaper said Wang's forecast could still be seen as optimistic, given that the United States has an estimated 210 million Internet users.
Most of China's internet users whom are younger people living in relatively affluent urban areas.
China's internet police block hundreds of websites that are deemed politically sensitive.
Tens of thousands of small internet cafes have been closed in the last few years, with the government favouring large chains that can be relied upon to monitor and control online activity.
Evidence from postings on websites has also been used in the conviction of several dissidents in recent years.
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