> Industrial News > News   China Has 253 Million Netizens   The number of Chinese netizens reached 253 million by the end of June, for the first time surpassing U.S. to hit the most in the world, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said today in a report, the 22nd of its kind on the statistics of Chinese Internet development. However, the Internet penetration rate is only 19.1%, still lower than the world’s average of 21.1%. A total of 1.919 million websites are available in China, increasing at the annual growth rate of 46.3%. In addition, the registered "CN" domain hits 1.369 million, 71.3% of website total. Comment: The CNNIC report indicates Chinese internet users are still on the fast increase and China has shown the initial potential to be a large country of Internet. The good news will bring new hopes for the Internet map market. In the future, location and navigation services via Internet will be the first choice for digital map users due to rapidity and mass data of Internet. The map service market is growing steadily and rapidly. It is predicted that map service market size will hit RMB 311 million in 2008, up 92% over the same period in 2007, and RMB 604 million in 2009, up 94.2% over the same period in 2008. It is believed that the Internet map market will go up with the continual expansion of Internet users.   Time:2008-07-31 Source:NaviForum Shanghai News Center Relative