In 2015, nearly 97 million Chinese netizens hailed taxis online, according to a report released on Friday by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). Also, about 22 million people booked private cars online.

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The improvements in providing fast and convenient public services can be linked to the expansion of Internet coverage, the report stated. This has also led to an upswing of ride-hailing platforms across the country. For instance, Didi Dache, which offers private car services, is one of the leading taxi call service apps in the country with more than 300 million users. It is available in 199 cities. Meanwhile, US-based Uber also claims that China will soon become its largest market.

The report also pointed out that more than half of the Chinese population (688 million) were already connected to the Internet by the end of 2015. According to Liu Bing, CNNIC deputy director, about 30 percent of that number is comprised of rural residents (about 195 million). Liu explained that rural netizens' annual growth rate increased twofold compared with that of urban users.

Aside from hailing cabs online, the research also found out that over 50 million first timers went shopping online last year. This adds to the country's more than 400 million shoppers.

As per Tsinghua University's head of the School of Economics and Management Chen Yubo, China has already invaded the Internet era even without attaining its modernization and industrialization aims yet. This is an unusual path, but it can be an unprecedented chance for the country to take advantage of the Internet to achieve its targets.

Under the "Internet Plus," a government initiative proposed by Prime Minister Li Keqiang in 2015, more companies started utilizing the Internet as a means to increase their social network, to speedily spread information and to market products and services, the report stated. However, about five percent of the companies in China do not own a computer and 11 percent that have no Internet access.

In addition, the research found that almost all of the companies make use of antivirus software, but only about 25 percent pay for it. The Internet has also become an online hub of over 560 million people for news.

China's ".cn" has since surpassed Germany's ".de" as the largest country code domain used, with 16.36 million users by the end of 2015. The country now has over 4 million websites. 

Tagstaxi, Didi Dache, Uber, cab hailing service