Official penetration rate of internet users in China 2014-2024

As of June 2024, about 78 percent of the Chinese population had used the internet. The penetration rate denotes the share of the population that has access to a certain communication medium. 

Internet coverage in China

For comparison, the global average internet penetration rate had resided at about 67.1 percent as of July 2024. The internet penetration in China had also been above the average rate in the Asia-Pacific countries. However, neighbor countries such as Japan and South Korea have displayed substantially higher internet penetration rates than China. It is worth noting that the internet usage in the country has faced a large regional disparity. Some of the remote western regions had shown penetration rates of below 45 percent.

Chinese online population

Over the past decade, the number of Chinese internet users has grown at a remarkable pace. By December 2023, the total amount of internet users in the world's second most populous country had amounted to approximately 1,092 million, up from 772 million in the end of 2017. Apart from extended access to broadband internet connections, mobile internet took up a large share in internet user growth. The share of users accessing the internet via mobile device had significantly exceeded that of those via desktop in the country. About 99.9 percent of Chinese internet users accessed the web via mobile phone.