Nearly half of China's population now online

China has 668 million Internet users, accounting for 48.8 percent of the country's total population, as e-commerce boomed in the world's second-largest economy, authorities said.

A total of 18.94 million new users -- more than the population of Chile -- were added in the first six months of this year, the semi-official China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said in its biannual report.

"Mobile business applications grew rapidly as Internet applications developed in an experience-improving and economics-relevant way," CNNIC said in a statement.

China, which already had more web users than any other country in the world, defines its online population as those who have used the Internet at least once in the last six months.