China Now World's Largest Internet Population

[engine]

China has surpassed the United States to become the world's largest Internet-using population, reaching 221 million by the end of February, state media said on Thursday.

The number of Internet users in China was 210 million at the end of last year, only 5 million fewer than the U.S. Internet users then, Xinhua news agency said, quoting the China Internet Network Information Centre.

"Despite a rapidly increasing Internet population, the proportion of Internet users among the total population was still lower than the global average level," Xinhua quoted the Information Ministry as saying.

China Now World's Largest Internet Population [uk.reuters.com]

[Hester]

But is Chinese or English the No.1 language used for websites?

[Guki]

Just a number,dont care.

[kele56]

wow

[lexipixel]

CIA Factbook (July 2008 est.) population:

World ..... 6,677,563,921
China ..... 1,330,044,605
USA ......... 303,824,646

[Old_Honky]

But is Chinese or English the No.1 language used for websites?

You would think it should be Mandarin, but English is not just used in the US. There is of course a few thousand of us here in good old England, then some in Australia, Canada and a good part of South Africa. Then you have to consider the country with the biggest English speaking population in the world - India, and finally most Chinese who are involved in any sort of commerce (= most of the Chinese who are on line) speak English fluently because they use it to communicate with their commercial partners. (We deal with an Italian company which has a manufacturing partnership in China - they communicate with each other in English).

So it's still English by a big margin and is likely to remain so.

[fischermx]

One question: do they have credit cards?
What I'm really asking is, do they have purchasing power?

[KanukBoy]

Yes, they have credit cards. I have not crunched the numbers, but my sales to Chinese users are no where near that of that to U.S. users. Yes, my site targets both markets.

My question is...
What devices are they using? Do we need to build web pages for mobile devices now?

[ronin]

English is not just used in the US. There is of course a few thousand of us here in good old England, then some in Australia, Canada and a good part of South Africa.

More than sixty million English speakers in the UK last time I checked. The Philippines (commonly forgotten) is often quoted the third largest English speaking nation in the world (after the USA and the UK). New Zealand is English speaking. The Republic of Ireland is English speaking.

English is a de facto language in Singapore, Malta, Cyprus and (as Old_Honky stated) India.

English is the international language of academic and scientific research, aviation, shipping, technology, business...

So, English isn't going anywhere fast. But it always helps to have competence in other languages. Mandarin is useful in Mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Chinese takeaways all over the world.

Time to get those flashcards out >;->

[miguello]

interesting thread - I just posted a question in a different forum about Chinese domain names. Maybe you have an answer. Please take a look.
[webmasterworld.com...]

to respond to this thread: we are a non-English company, but English language amounts to majority of the sales. There are few sales in Chinese through English pages. If yes, then mostly from Taiwan, HK and Singapore. Almost nothing from continental China. My hope is it would grow if we had a Chinese only website. Is it unsubstantiated hope?