Most young Chinese use mobiles to get online: survey

Most young Chinese use mobile phones to access the Internet as these are cheaper and easier to obtain than desktop computers, according to a survey by a government-linked body.

About three-quarters of China's 195 million web users under the age of 25 - roughly half of its world-leading online population - surfed the Internet using a mobile in 2009, up from 50 percent from a year ago, the poll revealed.

The finding marked the first time that mobile phones emerged as the top platform for web use among China's youth, according to the poll by the China Internet Network Information Centre, which was released on Monday.

The poll offers further proof of the importance of the burgeoning mobile Internet market in China, which has the world's largest number of mobile phone subscribers at more than 765 million, according to government data.

Nearly 70 percent of young Internet users still use desktops - implying that many web-savvy youth are using both methods to get online.

The centre said more young people in the countryside had opted for mobile Internet than their urban counterparts, as the handheld device "provided youths in areas where computers are hard to get with an alternative".

Young Chinese primarily use the Internet to listen to music, play games and watch video clips, the centre said.