China has more smartphone users than U.S. has people

The semi-official China Internet Network Information Center put out its latest totals on online usage Monday, and once again, the numbers are eye-popping. All told, China had 632 million Internet users as of the end of June, just slightly more than double the entire estimated population of the U.S. The year-to-date growth alone is more than 14 million users, roughly equivalent to all the residents of New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago combined. Just as interesting is the tremendous mobile-internet penetration -- a full 83%, or about 527 million, of Chinese netizens access the web via their phones. Then again, this wild growth may soon be hitting its head on the ceiling: According to Barclays, total smartphone shipments tumbled by just shy of 25% in January-March of this year when compared to the same period in 2013, a fact which "suggests the increasing market saturation and potential slowdown of new mobile Internet user growth in the coming quarters."