Internet – Growth continues at lower speed

New figures of the China Internet Network Information Centre (CINIC) show that growth of the number of internet users stabilized around 18 percent. In the first half of this year their number grew with nine million to 103 million. The slowdown in growth started to emerge last year, after years where the number doubled or even tripled.
The initially staggering growth was triggered off by a highly proactive government policies and the slowdown suggests that the priority of the government has moved away from fast growth after the penetration grade in the three larger cities, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou saw more than 50 percent of their households online. Wiring up smaller cities and the country-side is harder, as local governments might perhaps face other challenges.Reuters said that state media suggested that China expects to have 120 million users by the end of this year, but that seems highly unlikely unless policies focus on fast growth again.