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Report: China’s Net Users to Exceed 800 Million By 2015

According to a report released yesterday by China’s Social Sciences Academic Press, China’s internet users are expected to exceed 800 million by 2015. China already has more than a half-billion net users, and with smartphone and broadband penetration growing rapidly, SSAP’s prediction may be optimistic but it certainly isn’t unrealistic.

SSAP’s report says that more than a quarter of the internet users to be gained over the next few years will come from China’s countryside, where broadband and smartphone penetration rates are markedly lower than in cities. The report’s predictions are based on official government numbers that put China’s net users at 538 million as of June of this year. Sustained growth is predicted because the costs of accessing the internet are going down (especially as cheap smartphones flood the market) and because China has more than 1.3 billion people, so the potential market for the internet is vast.

And what are these Chinese users doing online? A little over a month ago we took a look at a CNNIC report that broke down Chinese internet user habits — and how they’re changing — into a pretty detailed table. Here’s the scoop: The SSAP report also says that China has more microbloggers than any other nation on earth, with 274 million total microbloggers as of the end of June. While impressive, that number is a bit of an embarassment for Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, both of which claim to have more than 300 million total users on their services alone. Clearly there are a lot of duplicate accounts and zombies.