The number of Chinese netizens reached 253 million by the end of June, up 56.2 percent from 162 million in 2007, the most in the world, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said in a report on Thursday.

The report, the 22nd of its kind on the statistics of Chinese Internet development, revealed the country also had the largest number of broadband subscribers at 214 million, more than 80 percent of the total domestic Internet population.

In addition, the registered "CN" domain topped 12.18 million as of July 22. China had replaced Germany as the largest country in terms of domain numbers.

The report also showed 206 million netizens checked news online, about 81.5 percent of the whole domestic online population, according to the report.

About 63.29 million shopped online, or a quarter of the whole domestic Internet population, while 23.79 million paid money through online means, the CNNIC reported.

China has seen a steady increase in its Internet users in recent years. It reported 210 million Internet users through 2007, while on June 30, 2006, the figure was 123 million.