Chapter VII The Size and Structure of Internet Users I. The Size of Internet Users (I) Overall Size of Internet Users Up to December 2016 China had 731 million Internet users, up 42.99 million over the previous year. The Internet penetration rate was 53.2%, a growth of 2.9 percentage points compared with the end of 2015. Size of Chinese Internet Users and Internet Penetration Rate 10,000 100000 53.2% 60% 47.9% 50.3% 45.8% 73125 50% 75000 42.1% 68826 38.3% 61758 64875 40% 34.3% 56400 28.9% 45730 51310 50000 22.6% 38400 30% 16.0% 29800 20% 25000 10.5% 21000 10% 13700 0 0% 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Number of netizens Internet Penetration Rate Source： Statistical Survey on Internet Development in China 2016.12 Figure 36 Size of Chinese Internet Users and Internet Penetration Rate After China's Internet users have rapidly grown for almost 10 years, demographic dividend is gradually disappearing and Internet users are growing steadily. In 2016, the Internet industry generally moved towards being standardized and value-oriented in China. First, China has introduced many policies to speed up the orderly and sound development of Internet-based fields and improve the development environment of the Internet; next, with a growing per capita spending power of Internet users and more per capita consumption in online shopping, O2O services and online entertainment, the driving effect of online consumption on GDP comes into being; last, the Internet enhances its influence on enterprises and more enterprises will get access 3939 The 39th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China