For the first time, more than half of China’s 1.37 billion population is connected to the Internet, a new report says – and more than 90% of users access the Web by smartphone.

The report, released by the state-backed China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), comes as China’s tech and mobile phone industries continue to thrive amid broader uncertainty in the world’s second-largest economy.

As of the end of 2015, the number of Chinese people online had reached 688 million, accounting for 50.3% of China’s population, CNNIC said. The figure marks the first time that China’s Internet population has surpassed the 50% level since the measurement began in 1997.

Among China’s Web users, 620 million people, or 90.1%, had mobile access to the Internet in 2015, the report said. College students and those under the age of 19 were the largest groups adding to the bump in China’s online population, contributing 46.1% and 46% respectively to the country’s additional 39 million Web users last year.

“These groups of people primarily use the Internet for communication and entertainment purposes, so portable and convenient smartphones can meet their demands well,” the report said.

William Long, a well-known Shenzhen-based independent IT blogger, attributed the growth in Web users to the recent boom in Internet-enabled devices.

“The lower cost of smart phones, especially some cheap ones with the Android operating system, makes it easier for people to surf online,” he told China Real Time.

The report also indicated a dramatic rise in mobile services like mobile payment, banking, shopping, travel booking and even mobile stock management, with each of them increasing at least nearly 39% last year.

Mobile payment, largely driven by Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay, rose 64.5% last year, reaching a total of 357 million users, while mobile banking, shopping and travel booking saw a 39.7%, 43.9% and 56.4% growth respectively. Notably, mobile stock management experienced 120.5% growth in 2015, with nearly 43 million users by the end of the year, as the Chinese stock market rode experienced roller-coaster fluctuations.

Moreover, expanding smartphone usage and mobile payment have benefited not only e-commerce, but also public services. About 96.6 million Chinese people, or one in 14, ordered a taxi via the Internet in 2015, with most using mobile phones to do so, the report showed. Other public sectors, like online education and medical consulting, reached 110 million and 152 million users respectively.

These sectors are now operating on a larger scale, the report said, adding that the Internet is “effectively enhancing public services” and “promoting social harmony.”

--Marco Huang