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China Has More People Going Online With a Mobile Device Than a PC
An anonymous reader points out that even though China's internet adoption rate is the lowest it's been in 8 years, the number of people surfing the net from a mobile device has never been higher. "The number of China's internet users going online with a mobile device — such as a smartphone or tablet — has overtaken those doing so with a personal computer (PC) for the first time, said the official China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) on Monday. China's total number of internet users crept up 2.3 percent to 632 million by the end of June, from 618 million at the end of 2013, said CNNIC's internet development statistics report. Of those, 527 million — or 83 percent — went online via mobile. Those doing so with a PC made up 81 percent the total. China is the largest smartphone market in the world, and by 2018 is likely to account for nearly one-third of the expected 1.8 billion smartphones shipped that year, according to data firm IDC.
Does that mean that TOR is available for mobile phones now too?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
We all know this is the future, but a scary one. Webapps, 'cloud' with insane caps, and closed ecosystems.
China has a whole bunch of in-state manufacturers that are backed by their government. I'm sure it's also a lot easier for their government to control what goes on with cell phones, because they either own the providers or have total control over their activities. This almost sounds like a "Everyone's doing it, so should you!" kind of thing to get more people to buy state-controlled phones.
and android phones support enough chinese input methods which makes them popular.
Ever use a computer with some kind of Chinese input? It's a nightmare.
Unfortunately, the article doesn't mention individual numbers, but given that iOS dominates the mobile internet, maybe this is due to Apple's expansion into China.
Since when?
It's 2014 so the Internet has been around a long time and it's not surprising growth is slowing. What surprises me is that according to the article there are only 632 million Internet users in China in June, whereas the total population of 1.35 billion is over twice that number. In other words, most people in China do not access the Internet - only 47%. In the US the figure is 87%.
... as the mobile infrastructure seems to handle IPv6 better than the PC infrastructures do. It would not have been a pretty sight to try to make IPv4 work with all those mobile devices.
Most of the developing nations don't have infrastructure for descent wired connectivity. Satellite/Mobile is quick and cheap way out.
Reading a tweet or receiving an iMessage is not 'surfing the net'.
My house has more people going online with a mobile device than a PC.
According to my Chinese co-worker who just got back from vacation in China, access to the internet is less filtered there for phones than it is for computers.
Mobile devices are PCs.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
China has more people going online mobile devices than pcs. The headline implies that they're all sharing one mobile device and one pc.
I am online with my phone 24 hours a day, INCLUDING the time when I am using my computer. Because it is a constant connection. So, all this is saying is that there are mobile devices that people own in China.
I wonder how affordable the smartphones and tablets are. I assume that the people of the middle class can afford the smartphones and data plans? I'm not trying to be disrespectful or stereotype the Chinese citizens. Its just that all I hear from the news is the lower class living in "poor" farming villages. Looks like the middle class has internet access one way or another.
Nice to see some Chinese citizens having a decent life and a decent wage. So it is not the rich executives that can afford to go on trips and buy cell phones. I learned something new. Even the college courses that I took about developing nations didn't teach much about China or even Asia as a whole. Shame. I can't wait to see China for myself.
That doesn't mean anything.
I am online everytime I have my cell phone one and move around, which is pretty much all the time, but that's only because It connects automatically, or when I am on the road. I prefer to use my PC at home, or my Laptop if I am planning to do any heavy work while away.
Given the apparent interest in Privacy Badger it's clear in the US most people are still using desktops. I almost never browse on a desktop anymore, and the fact that Privacy Badger insists on running as a desktop browser plug-in makes it useless to me. And before you whine about how Apple won't this or Apple won't that, I am using a less heuristic web filter on iOS that I believe operates as a proxy (Weblock. Note: NOT Web Lock, though I suppose that might work too). So it seems to me it's possible to do in iOS. Plus, a proxy version rather than a browser plug-in would be preferrable anyhow, I tend to use multiple browsers on every platform, and I could set up a Raspberry PI to host it and at least my at-home browsing with the iPad and everything else would be able to use that in any case...
More than half the country couldn't afford a computer and if they did they most likely wouldn't have a home like we think of it in the West. A lot of people in China are still in deep, rural areas where cell towers may exist, but they live in structures barely better than shacks. They can afford a mobile device and get access to the Internet in outlying areas. The phone needs little electricity to charge so there you go.
I'll bet it is rooted cell phones, with the added security of being mobile, allowing Chinese to do what the rest of the world takes for granted.
I come here for the love
Even in more developed countries there are often times more people using cell phones to access the internet than PCs. For instance Japan(article is a bit old, but I don't see the trend reversing). One of the big reasons is that in a lot of countries people don't take work home. If you don't take work home, then there isn't nearly as much of an impetus to buy a PC and use it to access the internet.
Monstar L
Exactly, mobile internet users has always been the majority internet users since years ago in Indonesia for example.
I mean, every Chinese person (any human really) I know who can afford a laptop PC/Mac absolutely has one. Let's not pretend that smartphones are a great equalizer. This just means technology costs are low enough to offer the product to a wider audience, not that the audience is growing on it's own.
does it take to create an "internet user"?
He is crazy if you think about it; I am not.