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Beijing (pte042/20.01.2005/14:45) - The number of Internet users in mainland China has grown year-on-year by 18.2 per cent to 94 million people, according to a recently published survey. As China's official information website http://www.china.org.cn reports, other surveys have found that the number of Internet users in Hong Kong and Macao have not changed dramatically over the last five years, with 51 per cent and 46 per cent of local residents already online in the two special administrative regions by the end of 2004.
According to Jonathan Zhu, a researcher at Hong Kong University, the percentage of people online in Hong Kong is already the second highest in the Asia-Pacific region behind South Korea. Only 39.4 per cent of Internet users on the Chinese mainland are female, whereas in Hong Kong and Macao there was a fifty-fifty balance. Over a half were below the age of 25 on the mainland, while the rates of users below 25 in Hong Kong were 39 per cent and 51 per cent respectively. 32 per cent of Internet users on the mainland were students, 12 per cent professionals and 9 per cent from business and service sectors. Around 67.9 per cent say the use the web mainly at home, and about 40 per cent in offices, Internet cafes and schools.
E-mails, news and search engines were cited as the main reasons to go online, with nearly nine out of ten saying e-mail was the most important aspect. The survey also found that users increasingly relied on the worldwide web for information - about 6.3 per cent said they used it as an educational tool.
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