Article first published as Chinese Internet User Growth Peaking on Technorati.
When we think about China, we are now immediately programmed to think about Growth. And not just any type of Growth, but record breaking growth in almost every subject imaginable.
It’s no surprise then that Internet User growth was often times more than 20% per year according to this article on PC World Nevertheless, since 2008, even though the number has still gone up, it hasn’t done so at the same rate. This year the total number reached 485 million with a little over 6% growth as described in this article.
Why is it then that rate is slowing down when less than half of the Chinese population is plugged in to the WWW? Perhaps it is the fact that education doesn’t reach several rural areas, much less computer usage. However, let’s remember that a large number of internet services and providers are not allowed in the Eastern Nation. While some say that this is only a way to regulate information, others say that people are just not interested in general. According to a press release from the Chinese government themselves, the reason as to why they prevent certain companies from getting in is to “develop and regulate healthy information.”
Taking all this into account, it seems then that there isn’t much more they’d like to regulate. No wonder they have Chinese versions of several companies, like Facebook and Google. A way to tweak traits in a more fitting way? Definitely so it seems. With all this taken into account, for China to reach a more than 50% of plugged in population, education will have to be accessible for more people. The question is, will the Chinese government agree on having more internet surfers?
Read more: http://technorati.com/technology/article/chinese-internet-user-growth-peaking/#ixzz1SemwJUMN