China had 68 million Internet users as of the end of June, 8.9 million more than half a year ago, according to statistics released Monday by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

The number of China's netizens now constitute 5.3 percent of its 1.3 billion population, said the information center in its latest assessment of the Internet industry.

The report said that China had 25.72 million computers connected to the Internet and 473,900 websites, including 250,651 under the domain name of "CN", respective increases of 23.5 percent, 27.5 percent and 39.6 percent over half a year ago, according to the CNNIC report.

Netizens surfing the Internet via telephone accounted for 45.01percent of total users, while broadband Internet users reached 9.8million, a significant rise from June's 6.6 million.

CNNIC statistics also show that websites under the domain name of "CN" registered in northern, eastern and southern China account for 76.4 percent of the national total, while those registered in northeastern, southwestern and northwestern China make up a very small proportion.
 
(Xinhua News Agency July 22, 2003)