---
title: "China – World’s Largest Internet Market By ’07"
date: 2006-09-05
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2006"
    url: "/tag/2006.md"
---

# China – World’s Largest Internet Market By ’07

According to stats [compiled by vnunet.com](https://web.archive.org/web/20100722032137/http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2163552/china-lead-broadband-world), China will overtake the US next year to become the world’s largest broadband internet market:

> “The number of broadband subscribers in China is growing at a staggering 79 per cent annually, and will reach 79 million in 2007, consulting firm Ovum predicted in research released today.
> 
> Recent estimates from Leichtman Research suggest that the number of broadband connections in the US, currently the world’s largest market, is around 51 million.”

[Like John Dowdell](https://web.archive.org/web/20100722032137/http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2006/09/globalizing_web.cfm), I believe this will provide many opportunities to developers all over the world. The globalisation of web apps is a trend that I’ve been monitoring closely, particularly in my ongoing series on [International Web Apps](https://web.archive.org/web/20100722032137/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/cat_international_markets.php).

In my post [Top Web Apps in China](https://web.archive.org/web/20100722032137/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_web_apps_china.php), I discussed how China’s mobile sector currently has more innovation than the general Web sector – because of the high penetration rate of mobile handsets and highly developed short message, ringtone and ringback tone services. However the risks for non-Chinese people in this market include tough government regulations, plus the language and cultural barriers. I also noted in that post that China already has some very big Internet companies – [Baidu](https://web.archive.org/web/20100722032137/http://www.baidu.com/), [Sina](https://web.archive.org/web/20100722032137/http://www.sina.com.cn/), [Sohu](https://web.archive.org/web/20100722032137/http://www.sohu.com/) among them. Check out my [China web app overview](https://web.archive.org/web/20100722032137/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_web_apps_china.php) for more details.

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/china_worlds_largest_internet_market.php))*