Report: 505 million use Internet in China

BEIJING, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- The number of Internet users in China climbed to 505 million by the end of November, officials said.

That's up from 485 million users at the end of June, the China Internet Network Information Center said, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

Roughly 38 percent of China's population of about 1.3 billion now use the Internet, up 3.4 percentage points from the end of 2011, the CINIC said in a report.

The report said the number of microblog users in China exceeded 300 million at the end of November, up from 195 million at the end of June.

The increase in the number of Internet users has led to a surge in China's Internet-related economy, which grew almost 73 percent in a year, to $11.3 billion in the third quarter of 2011, Shanghai-based Internet consulting firm iResearch said.

Microbloging, electronic commerce and mobile payment services all continued to grow rapidly last year, said Gao Xinmin, vice president of the Internet Society of China.