China has had 111 million netizens, or 8.5 percent of the country's total population. The number is 17 million higher than that in 2004. Globally some 970 million people connect with Internet. That is 15.2 percent of the world population.

China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) conducted a survey on China' s Internet development and issued a report, the 17th of its kind on Tuesday.

The survey has found that China ranks the second in the world in terms of the number of netizens and those surfing on the Internet through broadband which is the main access to Internet for Chinese netizens. The Chinese mainland has the world third largest number of IP addresses. And Chinese netizens spend more than 100 billion yuan or US$12.5 billion on surfing on the Internet.

"China's Internet development leaped forward radically in 2005," said Mao Wei, head of CNNIC.

Who are there?

The Internet is more popular among well-educated young males who make good money than in any other groups. 9.7 percent of males log on line while 7.3 percent of females do. 28.6 percent of the younger generation between 18 to 24 years old, which accounts for 10 percent of the nation's total, surf on the Internet. Age and the lack of network knowledge block the access to the cyber space for those who are under 18 years old. Only five percent of those who are in their forties making up 40 percent of the total population. 84.8 percent of people with college or above education background are Internet users. But only 1.8 percent of Chinese residents with no higher than high schooling get online.

The survey has also found the considerable gap between urban and rural areas in Internet spread-out. The 19.3 million rural netizens represents 2.6 percent of the rural population while 16.9 percent of urban residents, or nearly 92 million, are Internet users. The similar gap can also be seen between the east and the mid-west. 13 percent of Chinese living in the east use Internet, which doubles the figure in the mid-west.

Stay longer, and spend more

Chinese netizens spend 15.9 hours a week on average, an increase by 2.7 hours year-on-year. Experts view that as an main trend that the Internet has an increasing influence on people's daily life.

A Chinese netizen (except those whose Internet access is funded by his/her organization) pays 103.6 yuan per month on average for accessing the Internet (not including the charge for Internet service). Chinese netizens' bill for Internet access in the whole year of 2005 is expected to exceed US$12.5 billion.

In addition, 61.5 percent of those who shop online choose to pay online while 26.1 percent prefer cash on delivery.

Experts believe the figures indicate enormous market and bright prospect of China's Internet industry. Mao Wei asserted that the Internet industry had become a strategic pillar in China's national economy.

Gap in the cyber world

25,300 new websites were set up in 2005, making the total rise to 694,200 of which 85.5 percent are in north, east and south China. The share of websites in the country's northeast, southwest and northwest stands at 11.9 percent, very close to that in previous survey.

The biggest gap is in the number of websites per capita. In this regard, the number for the east is 20 times as much as that of the total of the mid-west which stands below the average website per capita.

A total of 2, 592, 410 domains have been registered in China, including cn, com, net, and org. Nearly 1.1 million CN domains had been registered in China by the end of last year, soaring 154 percent over the previous year. CN domains have become the favorite of domestic users. The CN domain outnumbered any other domain in Asia and its ranking in the world has risen to the sixth from the 13th at the beginning of this year. The growth of CN domains is 8.8 times faster than that of any other general domain (such as com)

75 to 80 percent of network resources pool in the east. Every ten thousand people in the east own 40 domains and 11 web sites while there are only six domains and 0.3 websites for the same number of people in the mid-west.

Every ten thousand Chinese have 20 domains while 1,500 out of every ten thousand Germans have registered their own domain. That means there is still a great potential for further development, said Wang Enhai, an official with CNNIC.

Editor: Yan