Meanwhile, Internet Usage In China Still Booming

The Chinese government may be keeping a close eye on which websites, blogs and search engines their people can visit, but that’s not stopping internet usage from growing fast throughout the country. The government-related information center CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) claims the nation’s online population has grown 41.9% in 2008 to an astounding 298 million users, reports the BBC.
That’s about the size of the entire U.S. population, while eMarketer pegs the online population in the States to be about 200 million. This further cements China’s position as the world’s largest online population, although internet penetration is still fairly low (22,6%) even if it exceeds the world’s average by almost one percent. More