A report published on Friday by government-run China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) shed light on the fast-rising number of the country's internet population at the end of 2015.

Data showed that 688 million Chinese use internet, more than half of the country's latest 1.4 billion population. This represents a 39.5 million year-on-year increase on the number of users and twice the online population of the United States.

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The era of mobile phones

The report also revealed that 620 million or 90 percent of the total Chinese online population used mobile phones to access the internet, while around 127 million go online using only their phones. 

Similarly, one in every 14 Chinese used car-hailing apps with most using their mobile phones. 358 million Chinese use the internet for mobile payment services, 152 million consult doctors online, and 110 million study online. 

Truly, mobile phones fueled Asia's biggest online population. Li Xiaodong, head of CNNIC, explained that willingness of an increasing number of enterprises to join with the public sector greatly helped.

An accurate example is Tencent's WeChat and car-hailing app Didi, which acquired a massive userbase shortly after being released. 

"Nearly 90 percent of netizens have used the instant messaging app in China. Meanwhile, 75 percent of traditional enterprises have taken advantage of Wechat for marketing promotion," said Liu Bing, deputy head of CNNIC. 

E-commerce also experienced a boost as 50 million joined the bandwagon of online shopping, capping the number of online shoppers at 413 million. 

"Another highlight is the strong momentum of online media, as online news readers have reached over 560 million by the end of 2015," Liu said.

The study included people who had accessed the internet at least once in the past six months to the internet population. 

TagsChina online population, chinese netizens, China Internet Censorship, Great Firewall of China