Mainland China saw a 24 percent surge in its internet population last year, driven in part by considerable growth in mobile internet users, according to a recent report of the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

The official survey released on Wednesday said that the number of mainland China's internet users reached 137 million, about 10 percent of the nation's population, by the end of 2006. The internet population rose from 8.5 percent in 2005 to 10.5 percent in 2006. Mobile internet users increased 30 percent from July to December, making up 12 percent of all internet users at the year end of 2006. This was the first time the survey included information on the mobile internet group. The increase rate in mobile internet users exceeded that of broadband users, which grew 16 percent to 90 million by December 2006 from 77 million by June and accounted for 66 percent of the total 137 million Internet users.

The increasing options of internet-enabled handsets made possible the stronger growth of mobile internet, whose biggest users are young people and students living in the urban areas. Mobile internet is expected to grow much faster in the coming two years when China's telecom operators make 3G services available," said an industry executive from a Nasdaq-listed mobile value-added service provider based in Beijing. Despite the promising mobile internet market, China is will not hurry to launch 3G services. The regulatory body has yet to grant 3G licenses to operators, but the service is generally believed to be available in late 2007 or early 2008. However, an industry researcher said that the 3G licenses in the mainland may not be issued until October 2008, after the Olympic Games.

The Ministry of Information Industry (MII), China governing and regulatory body of internet use, will kick off a new wave of trial run for the domestically developed TD-SCDMA networks in 10 cities including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in March to September this year. China's telecom operators including China Mobile and China Telecom will join in the trial.

Mainland China's portal Sina.com said that China Mobile would inject four billion yuan ($510 million) into the construction of new TD-SCDMA networks, part of the cutting-edge 3G technology services which will contribute more to the rapid growth of mobile Internet users in China in the years ahead.

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