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China’s web population has grown immensely over last few months, surpassing the United States to become the world’s highest user of internet. A rise of more than 61 percent of people using the web in the country has resulted in China becoming the leading country which uses the internet. The drastic change has taken place over a year, as at the beginning of 2007 nearly 137 million Chinese people were online, while by the end of February 2008 there were about 221 million internet users.
Experts suggest that if this trend continues then China’s web population will grow by about 18 percent in a year, placing the total at 490 million by 2012, which would be more than the population of the United States. Internet penetration in China, despite the swell in web users, is low, compared to the total population of the country. Merely 16 percent of China’s 1.3 billion people are online compared to the world average of 19 percent. The internet is nevertheless becoming the preferred means of communication for the Chinese.
