Internet Photo:VCG

By December 2021, the number of internet users in China had reached 1.032 billion, up 42.96 million from December 2020, and the internet penetration rate reached 73.0 percent. Network infrastructure has been completed and the industrial internet has also made positive progress, according to a new report.

The number of rural internet users in China has reached 284 million, and the internet penetration rate in rural areas is 57.6 percent, up 1.7 percentage points from December 2020, according to the 49th report on China's internet development released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) on Friday.

Elderly people are accelerating their integration into online society. Thanks to the continuous promotion of internet application transformation for the aged, demand among the elderly to get connected to the internet has been stimulated. 

As of December 2021, the number of internet users aged 60 and above in China reached 119 million, and the internet penetration rate reached 43.2 percent.

According to the CNNIC, 69.7 percent of elderly people can independently show their health code on mobile devices, and 52.1 percent of them can go shopping online and 46.2 percent independently use the internet to search for information.

Chinese netizens spend 28.5 hours online every week on average, and 99.7 percent of Chinese internet users surf the internet on mobile phones, per the report.

As a result, the online services market has seen continuous expansion.

The number of users of online food delivery increased 29.9 percent year-on-year to reach 544 million in December 2021, and the online ride-hailing market has a size of 453 million users, up 23.9 percent year-on-year.

Among internet users, 97.5 percent, or 1.007 billion, use instant messaging. And 975 million netizens watch online videos, with 934 million watching short videos.

By December 2021, the number of online office users reached 469 million, up 35.7 percent on a yearly basis and there were 298 million online medical users, up 38.7 percent.

Analysts said that this progress is a result of having complete network infrastructure. Meanwhile, there has also been strong progress in the industrial internet, thanks to 5G.

China had a total of 1.425 million 5G base stations by the end of 2021, with 654,000 5G base stations newly built in 2021, said CNNIC.

There are now more than 150 influential industrial internet platforms and 76 million sets of connected equipment, and more than 2,000 5G+ industrial internet projects are under construction nationwide.

The number of mobile phone base stations has kept growing, and the construction of 5G networks has made steady progress. By December 2021, China had 9.96 million mobile phone base stations, and the number of mobile phone users is growing steadily, said Huang Chengqing, vice president of the internet Society of China.

According to Huang, by 2021, the total number of mobile phone users in China reached 1.643 billion, of which 355 million were 5G mobile phone users.