China Internet Users Report Highlights Growth in 2024

Posted by By Dan Taylor 3 Min Read

The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has released its latest Internet Users Data Report, offering crucial insights into the country’s digital landscape. Published in August 2024, the report covers data collected up to June 2024 and is widely used by policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers.

Internet User Growth and Mobile Dominance

As of August 2024, China’s internet user base reached 1,099 million, reflecting an increase of 7.42 million users since December 2023. Internet penetration in the country now stands at 78%, showing a 0.8% increase over the same period.

Mobile internet use remains dominant, with 1,096 million users accessing the internet via mobile devices, representing 99.7% of all Chinese internet users.

Urban vs. Rural Users

A notable aspect of the report is the distribution of urban and rural internet users. As of June 2024, urban users made up 72.3% of the total internet population, with 795 million users. Meanwhile, 304 million users were from rural areas, accounting for 27.7% of the national total.

Device Preferences and Domain Growth

Mobile phones are the most common way to access the internet, with 99.7% of users relying on them. Other devices used include desktop computers (34.2%), laptops (32.4%), TVs (25.2%), and tablets (30.5%).

The report also highlighted growth in IPv6 addresses, which rose by 1.5% since December 2023. By June 2024, China had 69,080 IPv6 address blocks, signaling continued infrastructure development. Additionally, the country’s domain names totaled 31.87 million by mid-2024.

Popular Online Activities

Several online services have seen significant user growth in China:

  • Instant messaging remains the most popular activity, with 1.08 billion users by June 2024.
  • Online video usage reached 1.07 billion users, with short video users making up 95.5% of the total.
  • Online payment services had 969 million users, representing 88.1% of the population.
  • Online shopping attracted 905 million users, or 82.3% of China’s internet users.
  • Search engine use reached 824 million users, accounting for 75% of the total.

Other Key Insights

Several other digital services are gaining traction:

  • Live streaming services had 777 million users, representing 70.6% of the internet population.
  • Online music attracted 729 million users, accounting for 66.3% of netizens.
  • Online literature was used by 516 million people, or 46.9% of the online population.
  • Food delivery services reached 553 million users, while online car-hailing and travel booking services had 503 million and 365 million users, respectively.

Conclusion

The August 2024 report by CNNIC underscores the continued growth and digital transformation in China. With nearly 1.1 billion internet users and increasing reliance on mobile technology, the data offers valuable insights for businesses and researchers looking to understand the evolving Chinese market.

Dan Taylor
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Dan Taylor is the founder and editor of International Search Insights (ISI), the publication behind ReadIsi, and a Partner and Head of Innovation (Search & AI) at SALT.agency. He has worked in search for more than a decade, in-house and agency-side, and is regarded as one of the West’s leading voices on search engines beyond Google, including Yandex, Baidu, Naver and Cốc Cốc. On ReadIsi, Dan covers the engines and AI answer platforms that English-language coverage tends to miss: Baidu and ERNIE, Yandex and Alice AI, Naver, Cốc Cốc, Shenma, Sogou, WeChat and Weibo search, plus DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen. He also keeps dated records of documented changes, such as the Yandex, Baidu and Naver algorithm update histories and the DeepSeek, ERNIE and Qwen model update histories. His approach is to take learnings from global search engines and apply logic with a high evidence threshold. A claim needs a source, patterns seen in one market are treated as a hypothesis until they are checked in another, and where the evidence is thin he says so. For brands, that means advice built on what can be shown, with measurement that separates being cited from being chosen. Dan is credited with coining the term “edge SEO” and won the inaugural TechSEO Boost research competition in 2018 for his work on CDN and edge changes for SEO. In 2026 he was credited with coining “Infinite Tail” to describe how keyword research is changing with AI search. He is the author of AI Search Marketing For The Travel Sector, writes for Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land and Travel Marketing Guy, and has advised technology, SaaS, travel and enterprise ecommerce brands, including Cloudflare, GitLab and Airbnb. He has given multiple talks and panels at the International Search Summit in Barcelona, and has also spoken at Optimization Moscow, brightonSEO, Google Search Central Live Deep Dive Asia in Bangkok, Athens SEO and the Asia SEO Virtual Summit 2026, where his talk looked at how Baidu, Naver, DeepSeek, Tencent, Cốc Cốc and Yandex built their own AI answers.
Founder & Editor