THE number of Internet users in China rose last year by nearly 56 million to more than half a billion, nearly half of whom used microblogs, according to latest official figures.

    China’s online population — the world’s largest — hit 513 million in 2011, a 12.2 percent increase on the previous year, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said in a statement yesterday.

    Of these, 48.7 percent — or nearly 250 million people — used microblogs, compared to just 63.1 million at the end of 2010.

    The number of people using more traditional communication tools such as e-mails, Web forums or blogs was falling, the statement said.

    The number of people in rural areas using the Internet also rose last year — up 8.9 percent to 136 million in 2011 — but huge disparities still exist between rich and poor regions.

    While more than 70 percent of Beijing’s population used the Internet last year, only 24.2 percent of people went online in the southwestern province of Guizhou — the poorest in China.

    It added that while the number of Web users continued to rise in the world’s most populous country, the rate of growth was gradually slowing.(SD-Agencies)