(ECNS) - China's online population hit 802 million at the end of June, up 3.8 percent from six months ago, and 788 million of them, or 98.3 percent, used mobile phones to surf the Internet, according to the latest report by the China Internet Network Information Center.
Of the Internet users, 211 million, or 26.3 percent, were from rural areas, up 1.0 percent. Internet users in urban areas rose by 4.9 percent in the period amid the country’s ongoing urbanization. The main reasons that prevented rural residents from using the Internet were their lack of computer skills (49 percent), literacy levels (32.5 percent) and ages (13.7 percent). Those aged from 10 to 39 accounted for 70.8 percent of the total Internet users.
The report showed that online financial service users increased by 39.74 million in six months, up 30.9 percent, and online shopping and online payment users both accounted for 71 percent of the online population.
Short video-streaming apps boomed in the first six months of this year, with more than 74 percent of netizens using them to watch videos.
More than 42 percent of netizens accessed municipal public services through the popular Alipay and WeChat apps, the report added.
Other highlights in the first half of 2018:
China had 4.15 million mobile apps by the end of May, and 36.6 percent were about games.
Cumulative mobile internet traffic reached 26.6 billion GB, an increase of 199.6 percent.
Users of China's online government services reached 470 million, accounting for 58.6 percent of total online users.
Users of shared bicycles, on-demand taxis and car-hailing in the online population reached
30.6 percent, 43.2 percent and 37.3 percent respectively.
China’s international Internet gateway bandwidth expanded to 8,826,302 Mbps, up 20.6 percent.
The value of online retail sales reached 4.08 trillion yuan ($594 billion), a year-on-year increase of 30.1 percent.
And 43.6 percent used mobile phones to order takeout food.
