Telecommunications in China pie charts). China's number of Internet users or netizens topped 137 million by the end of 2006, an increase of 23.4% from a year before and 162 million by June 2007, making China the second largest Internet user after the United States. The latest figure (December 2011) have China's internet users exceeding 513 million making it the largest internet user in the world. As of 2004, the largest concentration of Internet users were from Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Shandong and Hubei provinces. Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin also had a high concentration of Internet users, with 28% of Beijing's population
Telecommunications industry in China billion mobile phone subscribers in China. The Chinese telecommunication sector’s growth rate was about 20% between 1997 and 2002. China fixed-line and mobile operators have invested an average of US$ 25 billion on network infrastructure in the last years, which will be more than all western European carriers combined. As a result, with 1.3 billion citizens, China has the world’s largest fixed-line and mobile network in terms of both network capacity and number of subscribers. China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on December 11, 2001 resulted in the gradual opening of the telecom services market to foreign companies.