Beijing, Jan 16 (IANS) China’s internet users rose to 513 million in December 2011, while the number of Chinese who took to microblogging reached nearly 250 million last year, four times the number in 2010, the government said Monday.

The country’s group-buying customers tripled to 64.7 million, the China Internet Network Information Centre said in its latest report.

Group buying, also known as collective buying, offers products and services at significantly reduced prices on the condition that a minimum number of buyers would make the purchase.

All major web portals in the country have launched their microblogging services. Popular microblogging sites include those operated by Sina and Tencent. Both have over 250 million registered users, the Shanghai Daily reported.

China’s internet penetration rate rose by 4 percent to 38.3 percent last year, lower than the average growth of 6 percent since 2007, the report said.

Last year also saw the number of daily deal websites drop steeply but the transaction volume surged six times to 11 billion yuan ($1.7 billion), according to a report by Tuan800, which tracks daily deal sites in China.

The number of mobile internet users also added 17 percent to 356 million, the report said. The top three most used web services remain to be instant messaging, search engines and online music streaming.

There were nearly 2.3 million websites in China by the end of 2011, up 20 percent from 2010, the China Daily reported.