China's Information Technology
 

• China ranks second in number of broadband users worldwide
  People's Daily,June 7, 2007 - Zhao Houlin, Vice Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), said on June 5th that China now has 97 million broadband users. This number of broadband users ranks the second only to the US. The development of the broadband communication industry has gained worldwide attention. At the opening ceremony of Broadband World Forum Asia 2007 held by the China Network Communications Group Corporation, Zhao Houlin said that by the end of 2005, 74 percent of global broadband users were from developed countries, and China made up 17.5 percent. China's rate of broadband popularization is the fastest among developing countries. Zhao Houlin said the ITU expects that "China's successful experience can be used as reference and be applied in other countries, thereby helping to narrow the gap between broadband users the world." At present, China's broadband users has exceeded 50 million; of which China Telecom's broadband access users has exceeded 30 million, and China Netcom's broadband access users has exceeded 20 million.
• China has 162 mln Internet users
  July 19, 2007 - The number of Internet users in China hit an estimated 162 million by the end of June, with nearly 100 people a minute going online for the first time, the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) announced on Wednesday. (Click the title of this news for full report.)
   
• China has nearly 20 million Internet bloggers
  Dec. 7, 2006.  - China had 19.87 million Internet bloggers at the beginning of November -- a 24 percent increase over the past 12 months. While more than 15 percent update their blogs at least once a week, only 4.6 percent do it daily, Baidu found. Blogs devoted to medicine and education are particularly popular, the Xinhua news agency said Wednesday, quoting a study by search engine Baidu. (Click for full report.)
   
• China's online sales to top 51 bln yuan in 2007
  Xinhua, Mar. 21, 2007 - BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) -- China's online sales are estimated to hit 51 billion yuan (6.38 billion U.S. dollars) in 2007, up 63 percent on the previous year, according to a report by iResearch, an Internet research company. The report shows the registered number of online shoppers was 43.1 million in 2006 and the number is expected to surge to 55 million this year. (Click for full report.)
   
• China to consider the standardization of electronic files
  Xinhua, Nov. 26, 2006 - The Chinese government is to set up a committee to consider the standardization of electronic files so they can adapt to different software, according to the Ministry of Information Industry (MII). Electronic files created by different software are not inter-adaptable, which hampers the communication and sharing of information. "With the fast development of information technologies, electronic file information, including design blueprints, geographical information, electronic documents and archives information, has become increasingly important," said an official with the MII. However, the lack of a standard system hindered the circulation of information, with many electronic files confined to more than 10,000 formats. Occasionally different versions of the same product were incompatible with each other. In most cases the ruptured information flow was monopolized by very few big companies. He said the research and development of electronic file technologies and standardized systems had made it possible to advance the communication and sharing of electronic file information.