China's online population, already the world's largest, rose to 298 million by the end of 2008, almost the same as the entire population of the United States
The figure is up 41.9 percent from a year ago and is still growing fast, the government-linked China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) said in a report published on its website.
The CNNIC report said 117.6 million people accessed the Internet using their mobile phones last year, up 133 percent from 2007.
China, with 633.8 million mobile phone users, last week issued long-awaited licences for third-generation (3G) mobile phones, which enable faster data transmission and services such as wide-area wireless calls and web surfing.
