China has 604 million netizens

BEIJING - The number of Internet users in China had hit 604 million as of the end of September this year, with mobile phones becoming the favored means of accessing the web, the State Internet Information Office announced on Thursday.

About 464 million people, or 77 percent of the country's total netizens, were regularly getting online via their phones as of June this year, according to the office's vice director, Ren Xianliang.

Mobile phones' replacement of computers as the most common Internet terminal signals that China has entered the mobile Internet era, said Ren.

The office's statistics also shows that all China's cities and 99 percent of its townships have been connected to the Internet.

The Internet has provided new channels for interaction between the government and the public and has become an incubator for China's booming electronic business, Ren added.