Not surprising with their recent rapid economical growth, China now has more internet users than US. And they also have over 10 million .cn domain names registered.

But what? At $0.13 per domain (yes, you read it right - you can register a .cn domain for just 13 cents, for example on todaynic)  Chinese domains are less valuable than .ca, even though they outnumber them by more than 10 to 1.

 Also many Chinese companies prefer phonetic .com names. I’m aware of a few private sales for such names in high 5 and 6 figures. Naturally these are.com names that refer to some of the top industries in Chinese.

BEIJING — China, already the world leader in cellphone use, has surpassed the USA as the No. 1 nation in Internet users.

The number of Chinese on the Internet hit more than 220 million as of February, according to estimates from official Chinese statistics by the Beijing-based research group BDA China. The government is likely to confirm the leap at its half-yearly report in July.

The longtime Internet leader, the USA, which founded and developed the network of computers, had 216 million users at the end of 2007, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

The percentage of American users — 71% — still exceeds China’s 17%. China has 1.3 billion people, compared with nearly 304 million in the USA.

China, however, has a higher growth rate, says BDA’s chairman, Duncan Clark. By the end of March, for example, Chinese users climbed to 233 million. ..more