China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has published its 18th China Internet Development Statistics Report.

The report shows that by June 30, 2006, the Chinese Internet population had reached 123 million, of which 77 million are broadband users, accounting for two-thirds of the total Internet users.

However, China's Internet penetration rate is only 9.4%, far behind that of the developed areas like the EU (49.8%) and the U.S. (68.6%).

The report says that Chinese netizens spend an average of 16.5 hours per week on the Internet, a much longer time than people in some developed countries and regions do, and the time has increased by 17.9% compared with the same period of last year.

The report also shows that 28 million Internet users in China often write blogs and game players usually spend about 11 hours per week playing online games.

In addition, the report says that total domain names in China have reached 2,950,500, which is 36000 more than six months ago. And the number of IPv4 addresses in the country has hit 84.78 million, ranking third in the world.