China now has over 800 million internet users

The Chinese tech landscape is quite interesting, especially when the figures that show up in various reports seem to defy logic. For example, a recent market research report by state-backed China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) reveals that the total number of internet users in the country reached 802 million at the end of June. However, 98.3 percent of the country's internet users own smartphones and use them to go online, but the shipments of these devices took a 4.9 percent dive last year.

Despite the decrease in smartphone shipments mentioned above, China remains the largest smartphone market in the world. According to a report issued by IDC back in February, Chinese buyers purchased over 444 million handsets back in 2017. 

Returning to the 802 million internet users mentioned above, these are a few additional key figures revealed by CNNIC's report:

• 30 million increase during the six-month period that ended in June
• 71 percent of the internet users engage in both online shopping and mobile payments
• over 20 percent use the internet to manage their finances (up from 16.7 percent at the end of 2017)
• about 25 percent of the internet users in China watched short videos on their smartphones in the first part of the year

These being said, remains to see if China hits the 1 billion internet users milestone before the end of 2020. If you have any thoughts on the evolution of the internet use in China, don't hesitate to drop a comment below.