Statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) show that the number of Internet users rose to 111 million at the end of 2005, an increase of 17 million from a year ago.

This figure shows that 8.5% of all Chiense people can count themselves as part of the country's digerati.

Other statistics show that 64.3 million users have broadband access and they spent over paid CNY100 billion last year on Internet services.

There are 19.31 million netizens in the rural areas, making up only 2.6% of the rural population. 91.69 million of the netizens live in cities, making up 16.9% of the urban population.

Internet users had paid 100 billion yuan (12.5 billion U.S. dollars) for the services last year, said China Internet Information Center.

The report said the actual Internet expense of each netizen amounted to 103.6 yuan (12.9 U.S. dollars) per month on the average, excluding the charges of various kinds of services like the e-commerce provided many websites.