Consumers try out 5G smartphones at a shop in Shanghai. (Photo by Wang Gang/For China Daily)

BEIJING - The number of internet users in China had hit 854 million as of June 2019, with the internet availability rate reaching 61.2 percent, according to a report on China's internet development released Friday.

A total of 847 million Chinese people used mobile phones to surf the internet, accounting for 99.1 percent of the total netizens, stated the report issued by the China Internet Network Information Center.