There were 137 million people online in China at the end of last year, up by almost a quarter from 2005, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said on Tuesday.

The number of Internet users rose by 23.4 percent to comprise 10.5 percent of the country's population, said CNNIC in a report.

"It is a great result, which means that one in ten people in China is a netizen," said official from the CNNIC, "and this is a turning point in the development of the internet in China".

Broadband users exceeded 100 million for the first time to reach 104 million, or 75.9 percent of all Internet users.

The survey found that netizens spend an average of 83.5 yuan (US$10.70) on the internet each month, falling by 20.1 yuan from the same period of last year.

Number of people accessing web via cell phone has greatly increased

Cellular phones are the latest equipment to be used by netizens to surf the internet, with the upcoming 3G era. Some 17 million Chinese went online using their cell phones, accounting for 12.4 percent of internet users.

At present, most netizens use this mobile technology to send and receive e-mails and browse for information. High costs and low speed were the major reasons more internet users didn��t go mobile, found the report.

By People's Daily Online