China gets wired

China now has the second highest number of home Internet users in the world, and is rapidly catching up with the US. China’s home users now number 56.6 million, about a third of the 166 million wired American homes, says a survey by the Nielsen/NetRatings Internet consultancy in Stamford, Connecticut. And with Net subscriptions rising by 6 per cent a month, China could quickly become the world’s biggest market, with a quarter of the population wired within five years.