Less than 10 percent of China's population has any type of Internet access, totaling a "mere" 110 million users, according to an eMarketer study.
Still, a new report from the New York-based research company notes that about a third of Internet-using households in China have broadband access. In fact, there will be over 80 million households with broadband in the country by the end of 2010. The majority of these households have DSL connections, as is the case in South Korea, Japan and other countries in the region with heavy broadband penetration.
As one measure of how enormous the Chinese market is, "only" 4.7 million Chinese will be using cable modems by 2010. Other broadband access methods including fiber, power line, WiMAX and other technologies will be the way 17 million Chinese go online by 2010. Already, China now has more DSL broadband subscribers than the United States.