--FILE--Chinese passagers utilisent leurs smartphones pour surfer sur Internet sur une rame de métro dans la ville de Wuhan, province du Hubei en Chine centrale, 28 décembre 201
--FILE--Chinese passengers use their smartphones to surf the Internet on a subway train in Wuhan city, central China's Hubei province, 28 December 2015. For the first time, more than half of China¯s 1.37 billion population is connected to the Internet, a new report says ¨C and more than 90% of users access the Web by smartphone. The report, released by the state-backed China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), comes as China¯s tech and mobile phone industries continue to thrive amid broader uncertainty in the world¯s second-largest economy. As of the end of 2015, the number of Chinese people online had reached 688 million, accounting for 50.3% of China¯s population, CNNIC said. The figure marks the first time that China¯s Internet population has surpassed the 50% level since the measurement began in 1997. Among China¯s Web users, 620 million people, or 90.1%, had mobile access to the Internet in 2015, the report said. College students and those under the age of 19 were the largest groups adding to the bump in China¯s online population, contributing 46.1% and 46% respectively to the country¯s additional 39 million Web users last year.
