Anthony
(7) Internet Users Near 100 Million
[CND, 02/04/98] China Daily reports that Internet users numbered 99.96
million at the end of 1997 and that figure is still growing, according to a
United States industry publication.
The California-based Computer Industry Almanac Inc, which publishes the
Internet Industry Almanac, said in a press release that the US leads the
world in Internet use, having 54.68 million users and a 54.70 per cent share
of the world Internet market at the end of 1997.
But as more and more people enjoyed the benefits brought to them by the new
technology, smaller industrialized countries with many Internet users were
expected to be replaced by more populous countries such as China and Russia.
The Almanac, scheduled for release in February, predicts that the US share
of the world Internet market will dip to 40 per cent by the end of the year
2000 as more and more countries adopt Internet technology.
The US share was about 80 per cent in 1981 and 65 per cent in 1994. Other
countries with about one million Internet users are Japan, Britain, Canada,
Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and France. The number
of Internet users in China has grown to 600,000, said Lu Xinquan with the
State Council's Internet Task Force. He noted that 100 Internet service
providers were in operation in China.
He did not specify whether the cited 600,000 figure referred to the formal
subscriber base or actual users. Many accounts allowing access to the global
network are shared by multiple users in the country. Internet subscribers
in China numbered just 40,000 in mid-1995, according to official figures.
Beijing alone has 100,000 users. (Ray ZHANG, James Xie)
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(8) Pentium II to Dominate China
[CND, 02/04/98] As Pentium II-based computers quickly penetrated the Chinese
market in the later several months of 1997, few doubted that computers in
this category would become mainstream hardware in the upcoming year. What's
concerning most analysts now is how soon it will become true.
"Sales of our Pentium II processors are quite satisfying after they were
introduced in May 1997 in China, and I believe computers based on this
processor will become the mainstream PCs in the second or third quarter of
1998,"said James Jarrett, vice-president of Intel Corp and president of
Intel China. Intel launched its Pentium MMX processors in January 1997 and
the MMX-PCs dominated the Chinese market by the end of 1997.
Beijing-based experts predicted that computers based on Pentium II
processors will account for 40 to 50 per cent of the total PCs sold in China
in the first three months of 1998.
So far, at least four Chinese PC companies have offered Pentium II-based
computers to the market at a price lower than 10,000 yuan ($1,204), although
with different configurations. It is widely believed that computers priced
at less than 10,000 yuan are the most competitive machines in China. (Ray
ZHANG, James Xie)