Around 94 million people on the Chinese mainland
were using the internet by the end of last year, according to the
results of a recently published survey.
The number represents year-on-year growth of 18.2
percent, Wang Enhai, the director of China Internet Network
Information Centre (CINIC), said yesterday in Beijing.
But other surveys have found that the number of
internet users in Hong Kong and Macao have not changed dramatically
over the past five years, with 51 and 46 percent of local residents
already online in the two special administrative regions by the end
of 2004.
Jonathan Zhu, a researcher at Hong Kong University,
said the percentage of people online in Hong Kong is already the
second highest in the Asia-Pacific region, the highest being in
South Korea.
The gender divide amongst people using the internet
on the mainland is noticeable: only 39.4 percent were female. In
Hong Kong and Macao, there was a fifty-fifty balance.
More than half were aged below 25 on the mainland,
while the rates of users below 25 in Hong Kong and Macao were 39
and 51 percent.
On the mainland, 32 percent were students, 12
percent professionals and 9 percent from business and service
sectors.
Nearly 67.9 percent say they used the web mainly at
home, and about 40 percent in offices, internet cafes and
schools.
Email, news and search engines were the top reasons
to go online, with nearly nine out of 10 saying email was the most
important aspect.
The survey also found that users increasingly
relied on the web for information?-- about 6.3 percent said
they used it as an educational tool.
The numbers using online banking did not rise
significantly, primarily because of security concerns.
Although only 5 percent said they used online
banking in their daily lives, Cyberbank Section Manager Wang Gang
of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China said that the coming
10 years will become a "golden period" for online banking on the
mainland.
(China Daily January 20, 2005)