The number of mobile Internet users in China has reached 724 million, says the 40th China Statistical Report on Internet Development issued by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) on August 4.

China now has an online population of 751 million, accounting for a fifth of the world’s total. Internet penetration of the country is 4.6 per cent higher than global average.

Digital technology represented by Internet is accelerating its integration with economic and social environment, becoming a major driving force for China’s consumption upgrading, economic and social transition, as well as the enhancement of national competitiveness, said Hao Liyang, a CNNIC analyst.

In the first half of 2017, China saw 28.3 million newly-added mobile Internet users, and the people who use mobile phones to go online accounted for 96.3 percent of the online population.

According to the report, application scenarios have been substantially expanded because of the rise of mobile application users. China now has 502 million mobile payment users; while 463 million of them use mobile payment for offline shopping.

“Users are becoming more and more dependent on Internet, and the service has expanded its coverage from news and search to shopping, travelling and payment,” said Liu Xin, deputy director of CNNIC’s internet research department.

Hao said social mobile application platforms will seek competitive differentiation and integration. In addition, she believes that the industry will make innovation from smart manufacturing to shared economy, making more possibilities for the optimization of social production.

With the rapid development of Internet, China is also gradually improving the monitoring system, requesting providers of websites, mobile applications, instant messengers and live streaming services to normalize their practice.