China News Service, Beijing, February 3 (Reporter Liu Yuying) The 47th "Statistical Report on China's Internet Development Status" released by China Internet Network Information Center on the 3rd shows that as of December 2020, the number of Chinese Internet users has reached 989 million. The number of mobile Internet users is 986 million.

The report stated that "nearly one billion Internet users constitute the world's largest digital society."

　　As of December 2020, the overall scale of Chinese Internet users has accounted for about one-fifth of the global Internet users.

During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the scale of Chinese Internet users increased from 688 million to 989 million, an increase of 43.7% in five years.

　　The report shows that the average weekly online time for Chinese Internet users is 26.2 hours, which is 4.6 hours less than in March 2020.

　　According to statistics, as of December 2020, there are 309 million rural Internet users in China, accounting for 31.3% of the total Internet users.

The Internet penetration rate in rural areas was 55.9%, an increase of 9.7% from March 2020.

　　Groups of minors and "silver-haired" elderly people "touch the Internet" one after another.

The main body of netizens' growth is changing from youth groups to underage and elderly groups.

Among netizens with an Internet age of less than one year, netizens under the age of 20 accounted for 17.1 percentage points higher than the proportion of this group in the total netizens; netizens over 60 accounted for 11.0 percentage points higher than the proportion of this group in the total netizens.

　　In terms of academic qualifications, as of December 2020, the proportions of netizens with junior high school, high school/technical school/technical school degrees were 40.3% and 20.6% respectively; the proportion of netizens with elementary school and below increased from 17.2% in March 2020 to 19.3 %.

　　In terms of occupation, as of December 2020, among the netizens, students accounted for the most, accounting for 21.0%; self-employed/freelancers accounted for 16.9%; agricultural, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery workers accounted for 8.0%.

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