Seeing all the headlines about how China now has more Internet users than the US has given Imagethief the same unpleasant feeling that he gets when he runs a strip of nylon cordura between his teeth. Imagethief has no problem with China having more Internet users than the US. China has four times more people than the US, so this is as it should be.

My complaint is twofold. First, this is the second round of these headlines we've had. The last round was generated in March, when analyst firm BDA projected that China had passed the US. This was widely reported in mainstream media. And, frankly, if you want to be a stickler, Imagethief congratulated China on passing the US ten days before the BDA report went public. True, BDA probably used some kind of highfalutin' analytical methodology, whereas Imagethief's statistically dubious approach consisted of holding a ruler across the trend line. But, hey, I stand by my squishy numbers. (Pauses to nurse wounded feeling.)

Second, and more importantly, the fact that China has more Internet users than the US is about the least interesting thing in the current, 22nd CNNIC report on Internet use in China (δΈ­). Don't get me wrong, there's plenty interesting in it. For a good summary that will tide you over until the English version comes out, see Kaiser's post at Digital Watch. Among the things that I find interesting:

  • A higher rate of from-home access than I was expecting, especially given still anemic home PC penetration, of 74%, not exclusive of other locations.
  • The extremely low level of from-work access (which says something about the Internet using demographic), of 22.7%, not exclusive of other locations.
  • The drop in average age and education level of users, suggesting faster growth among students than professionals (and lining up with the numbers above).
  • The walloping popularity of music and video, which says something about the mainstream options available I think.

None of those things has anything to do with how the number of Chinese users compares with the number of American users. China has four times the number of people that America does. Sooner or later, assuming it doesn't collapse economically, it's going to have more of almost everything in absolute numbers. Cars; flush toilets; yappy dogs in waistcoats; digital watches. It's already got a reported 600 million mobile phone subscribers (and, one assumes, a broadly similar number of mobile phones), up 50% in 2 1/2 years and arguably a more important economic indicator than Internet access. As always, the per-capita numbers and penetration --still less than 20% for the Internet-- will say more about the state of national development than the absolute numbers.

It is perhaps fair to consider the absolute numbers if you're interested in the Internet's center of gravity. But there are a couple of complications here. First, for linguistic reasons, the Chinese Internet will always be somewhat more isolated than the English Internet. Yes, Mandarin is the world's most widely spoken language (or that's the conventional wisdom at any rate). But English is a more internationally spoken language, for th time being. Also, although it has some cool Internet companies, China is not the nation driving the Internet's technological development, and looks unlikely to be any time soon.

Crankiness aside, I understand why the news is presented this way. It is something of a milestone to be the country with the biggest community of Internet users. Also, making the comparison with the now second-place USA explicit makes the story relevant for readers in the US. The "China passes USA" headlines are probably also Google gold, as Steven Schwankert (who has also done this story twice / twice) pointed out to me. But the headlines perpetuate negative idea of China's development as a zero-sum rivalry with the US.

There are some other shortcomings in the report as well, as pointed out by Paul Denlinger at the China Vortex. Paul would like much more methodological data, which I also agree would be nice. He'd also like to see information broken out by province. I'd like to see it by major metropolitan areas, myself, which tends to be how many of my clients segment the market.

Still, the report always makes interesting reading, and I'm glad that CNNIC does it and makes it available for free.