The latest report from the China Internet Network Information Center shows that as of June 30, 2007, there were 162 million Internet users in China, which made the country rank second in the world next to the United States in terms of Internet population.

    The report says the Internet had penetrated into 12.3% of China's total population. In comparison to the latter half of last year, the first half of this year saw 25 million new Internet users, which was 39 million more compared with that of the same period last year and meant that 100 new netizens would be added every minute.

    The report shows that about 44 million Chinese users use mobile phones to surf online, which was 2.6 times higher than last year. In addition, .CN domain name websites reached 810,000, increasing by 137.5%, and the number of .CN websites exceeded that of .COM for the first time.