Staff members sell children's clothes on e-commerce platforms at a company in Zhili Township of Huzhou City, east China's Zhejiang Province in August 2018. (Xinhua/Xu Yu)

The number of Chinese internet users hit 829 million at the end of 2018, more than double the population of the US and up 7.3 percent on the previous year.

According to the report published by the China Internet Network Information Center and sent to the Global Times, 817 million Chinese used a smartphone to surf the internet, accounting for 98.6 percent of the total netizens.

The majority of Chinese net users have not progressed beyond high school, with 63 percent having graduated from high school or below. Netizens with a bachelor's degree or above accounted for only 10 percent.

Net users with a monthly salary between 2,001 yuan ($299) and 5,000 yuan accounted for 36.7 percent of the total, while the group of net users earning more than 5,000 yuan a month accounted for 24 percent.

The amount of short video platform users reached 648 million by the end of 2018, accounting for 78 percent of the total.

However, there are still 562 million people in China isolated from the online world, with most living in rural regions. A low education level and insufficient internet surfing skills are the main obstacles blocking them from accessing the internet, the report said.