(ECNS) – Chinese investors are increasingly relying on the Internet for stock trades, with the number of investors using online stock trading services hitting 56.28 million in June, said the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) in a report released Thursday.
Liu Bing, deputy director of the CNNIC, said online stock trading drew more investor interest in the first half of 2015 thanks to a bullish stock market in the past year.
On the other hand, traditional Internet-based applications, such as e-mail and BBS, continued to see a drop in usage in the first half, while other applications, like search and instant messaging services, saw an increase, up 2.7 percent and 3.1 percent respectively, according to the CNNIC.
Mobile business applications experienced rapid growth in the first half, forming the new driving force for the growth of an Internet-based economy. In particular, online payment services were increasingly popular, with their usage jumping 17.9 percent in the first half.
Payment, shopping and travel services via smartphones saw their user numbers increase 26.9 percent, 14.5 percent and 25 percent respectively to reach 276 million, 27 million and 168 million in the first six months of the year.
CNNIC predicts that cloud computing, Internet of things, and big data technologies will help accelerate the transformation and upgrade of agriculture, modern manufacturing and service industries. This will reshape economic landscapes based on infrastructure and applications facilitated by the Internet.
