January 15
2002, China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) issued the ninth Statistical Report on Internet Development in China: By December 31, 2001, there were 12,540,000 computers in total which had access to the Internet in China. There were about 3,370,000 Internet users, 127,319 domain names registered under .CN, and about 277,100 WWW websites. The international exit bandwidth was 7597.5M.
March 14
The ninth ministry affairs meeting of the Ministry of Information Industry approved and adopted Measures for the Administration of Internet Domain Names of China which was put in force from September 30, 2002.
March 26
Internet Society of China issued Self-regulation Convention for Internet Industry in China in Beijing, a guarantee for the establishment of the self-regulation mechanism for the Internet industry in China.
May 17
The Ministry of Culture issued Notice on Strengthening Management of Network Culture Market.
From June 21 to 24
A team lead by Cai Mingzhao, Deputy Director of International Communication Office of CPC Central Committee and State Council Information Office and Deputy Head of the Internet Harmful Information Clean-up Group, went to Fujian for inspection. In the clean-up, communication and other relevant departments were required to regulate news sources, effectively manage Internet news publishing activities in accordance with law, correct illegal news publishing behaviors, and resolutely stop the spread of harmful information online.
June 27
General Administration of Press and Publication and the Ministry of Information Industry jointly formulated Tentative Provisions on Administration of Internet Publishing which would be officially implemented from August 1, 2002.
June 29
The Ministry of Information Industry, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Culture and State Administration for Industry & Commerce of the People's Republic of China jointly issued the Notice on the Administration of Internet Cafes and Business Premises Offering Internet Access Services.
July 3
The second meeting of National Information Work Leading Group was held. The meeting approved and adopted Informatization-specific Plan in the Tenth Five-year Plan of the National Economy and Social Development, Instructions on Construction of Electronic Government Affairs in China, and Action Framework for Revitalizing the Software Industry.
In early July
The Ministry of Information Industry issued the Circular on Use of 5.8GHz Frequency Band, approving the use of the 5725MHz - 5850MHz frequency band by point-to-point or point-to-multipoint spread spectrum communication systems, high-speed wireless LAN, broadband wireless access systems, Bluetooth equipment, vehicle wireless automatic identification systems and other radio stations. Policies had allowed 2.4G and 5.8G frequency bands to be used for wireless Internet access, providing great room for the development of WLAN applications in China.
August 1
Tentative Provisions on Administration of Internet Publishing jointly formulated by General Administration of Press and Publication and the Ministry of Information Industry officially came into force. The purpose of this policy was to strengthen the management of Internet publishing activities, to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Internet publishing organizations, and to promote the healthy and orderly development of the Internet publishing industry in China.
August 14
The 62nd standing meeting of the State Council approved Measures on the Administration of Business Sites of Internet Access Services. These Measures were formulated to strengthen the management of business premises offering Internet access, to regulate business activities of operators, to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the public and operators, to promote the healthy development of Internet access business, and to promote the construction of socialist spiritual civilization.
August 16
The highest level professional forum as well as the largest professional forum in China's Internet media industry 2002 China Internet Media Forum was held at Suzhou Conference Center in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, with the theme of "development and content construction of Internet media".
September 25
Implementing Rules on Registration of Domain Names, Dispute Resolution for Domain Names, Certification Method for Registration Authorities of Domain Names and other files were promulgated by China Internet Network Information Center.
September 29
Premier Zhu Rongji signed and issued No. 363 Decree of the State Council of the People's Republic of China to promulgate Measures on the Administration of Business Sites of Internet Access Services which was put in force from November 15, 2002.
September 30
Measures for the Administration of Internet Domain Names of China came into force.
October 23
The Ministry of Information Industry announced the third generation public mobile communication system frequency plan, laying a solid foundation for the development of 3G telecommunications in China in the future.
From October 26 to 31
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a global registry of Internet addresses and domain names, held a conference in Shanghai. It was the first ICANN conference in China.
November 22
The Ministry of Information Industry promulgated Announcement on the Domain Name System of the Internet in China.
November 25
The First China Internet Conference and Exhibition, which was approved by the Ministry of Information Industry and sponsored by Internet Society of China, was held in Shanghai.
November 26
State Economic and Trade Commission and the Ministry of Information Industry jointly held a meeting at Lenovo Headquarters in Beijing to promote the application of information technology in enterprise management activities. On the meeting, Vice Premier Wu Bangguo pointed out that application of information technology in enterprise management activities had become a driver for innovation and upgrading of Chinese enterprises.
November
The Sixteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to leverage on information technology to promote industrialization, use industrialization to stimulate development of information technology, blaze a new path of industrialization, and promote the integration of information technology development and industrialization.
December
China Communications Standards Association (CCSA) was founded.
2002
The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Culture officially launched the China Digital Library project to promote information sharing on a national scale. The target of the project was to build 5,000 digital centers at local level by 2005.
2002
National Information Security Standardization Committee was founded.
January
CCTV introduced a full suite of Baidu WST information retrieval software.
January 8
China Unicom officially launched CDMA mobile network. The investment in the first phase of this project already reached RMB 24 billion. It challenged the dominant position of GSM technology in the market and guiding the mobile communications market in China to enter a new stage where GSM and CDMA competed with each other while at the same time seeking mutual development.
From January 22 to 24
China Mobile Communications Corporation held a working meeting and put forward the strategic focus of "becoming a leading company in telecommunication services and business".
January 23
China Mobile Communications Corporation and China Southern Airlines announced their partnership. This was the first time that a telecommunication company and a civil airline company had joined hands in China.
January 25
AsiaInfo Technologies (China) Co., Ltd. officially announced in Beijing that it had spent USD 47 million, 62% in cash and 38% in the form of shares, to acquire 100% interest in Guangzhou Bangxun Technology Co., Ltd. This was the first acquisition by AsiaInfo since it was successfully listed on NASDAQ nearly two years ago. It was also the largest acquisition carried out by AsiaInfo and also the largest one in the industry in 2002.
February
Clienmet was merged with the world's largest chemical database engine chemyahoo .
February 25
SOHU celebrated its fourth anniversary and officially rolled out SOHU.net.
March
EBay acquired 33% of the shares of EachNet, and added USD 150 million in June 2003 to become the controlling shareholder of EachNet.
March
Alibaba launched Chengxintong membership program that targeted its operations in China, to better serve Chinese sellers and buyers.
March
The number of hotel reservations on Ctrip hit a record high in China's hotel distribution industry. In the same month, Ctrip acquired Beijing Hai'an Airline Services Company Limited and expanded its airline booking services.
March
In the latest China Marketing and Media Study (CMMS 2002) released by Sinomonitor, SOHU ranked first according to percentage of Internet users using the website in China's 30 major cities.
March
Clienmet launched static advertisements, keyword registration, free second level domain registration and other services.
March 8
Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Company Limited was incorporated. The event was the prelude to the comprehensive industrialization of China's TD-SCDMA technology.
March 10
China's first free mail service provider 263 stopped offering free email services.
March 27
With the approval of the central bank, China UnionPay was launched in Shanghai.
From March to April
From late March to early April, China's 3G experiment team completed the testing of one set TD-SCDMA system and 10 WCDMA systems. A number of domestic manufacturers, including HUAWEI, ZTE and Datang, had made a breakthrough in 3G research and development.
April
On the first annual meeting of Boao Forum for Asia, Hainan Branch of China Unicom provided participants with information on 1X+WLAN wireless Internet access program which was developed based on ZTE's CDMA.
April
SOHU and Guolian Securities spent RMB 50 million to set up a joint venture company.
April
SINA officially launched its wireless operations and began to provide wireless Internet access and wireless value-added data services.
May
TCL announced the release of China's first multimedia information terminal using Intel's application processor and flash memory, bringing an optimal multimedia (including voice, data, images and dynamic image) experience to users.
May
Jack Ma's photo appeared on the cover of Japan's top financial magazine Nikkei. Nikkei spoke highly of Alibaba's contribution in the trade between China and Japan.
May
Qidian was created. Later, it became the largest original Internet literature hosting website in China.
May
On the GPRS promotion conference held by Shanghai Branch of China Mobile, the new multimedia mobile terminal of the world's first Chinese language Windows mobile phone doPod686 was released in China.
May
Ctrip launched the national central airline reservation system.
May
China Netcom became a member of China Network Communications Group Corporation.
May 16
China Telecom underwent the second spin off. Its operations in North China were merged with China Netcom and Ji Tong to form a new company called "China Network Communications Group Corporation", and its southern operations continued to operate under the China Telecom name.
May 17
China Telecom launched the Vnet program in Guangzhou, marking the beginning of a new era when ISP and ICP joined hands to develop the value chain of the broadband Internet industry.
May 17
China Mobile took the lead and officially launched GPRS services on a national scale. On November 18, China Mobile and AT&T Wireless announced the official launch of their GPRS international roaming services.
June
To compensate for poor operating conditions of Fantasy Westward Journey 2, NETEASE introduced the Korean online games Priston Tale, indicating that NETEASE began to implement a composite online game business strategy.
June 11
The world's largest bank card organization VISA announced that China UnionPay officially became a principal member of the international organization.
July
The number of concurrent players of Legend of Mir exceeded 500,000, making Legend of Mir the world's largest online game.
July
Fang Xingdong, Wang Junxiu coined the Chinese name "博客" for blog and drafted of the Declaration of Chinese Blogs. Fang Xingdong and Wang Junxiu launched BlogChina and began to promote the concept of blog in China.
July
Tencent promoted industrial self-regulation and signed the Self-regulation Convention for Internet Industry in China.
July
China's total international exit bandwidth reached 10,576.5M. Countries connected to China via Internet including the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and Korea.
July
China Telecom decided to promote its Internet applications in China under the brand of Vnet and created a unified image for such services throughout the country.
August
Lenovo successfully launched China's first computer that was capable of doing more than one trillion calculations per second.
August
NETEASE achieved profitability for the first time since its IPO.
August
NETEASE developed Fantasy Westward Journey Online II. This version became China's first successfully operated online game developed by a Chinese company. In November 2003, NETEASE launched the massive online game "Fantasy Westward Journey Online" which featured cute cartoon characters.
September
SOHU launched new generation anti-virus, anti-spam, large capacity paid VIP email services.
By August
The revenues of Monternet climbed to nearly RMB 200 million within a continuous period of 16 months, bringing over RMB 100 million to the partners of China Mobile, indicating that Internet users had fully recognized and accepted the ideal of paying for useful services.
By October
12 countries or operators had launched MMS services. It was generally believed that MMS (i.e., multimedia messaging services) had an optimistic outlook.
October
Tencent's first "Q Human and Q Life" QQ Star Competition was successfully held, further integrating the image of QQ into young people's lives.
October 6
The first private servers of Legend of Mir were opened in China. The peak concurrent players exceeded 600,000.
October 9th
When China Unicom's A shares were listed on Shanghai Stock Exchange, it became China's first telecom operator that was listed in Hong Kong, the United States and Mainland China.
October 9
China Mobile launched MMS.
October 22
According to the quarterly report released by SOHU, it achieved full profitability in advance in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, with a profit of USD 112,000.
October 30
The shares of the three China-based Internet companies listed on NASDAQ - SINA, SOHU and NETEASE - closed at $2.92, $3.56 and $4.29 respectively. Although china did not stand out, its shares also performed quite well.
November
Baidu released MP3 search services and launched a learning search game which attracted the attention of a lot of Internet users; Baidu provided services to NETEASE.
November
BlogChina was launched and the founder of BlogChina Fang Xingdong was hailed as the "Father of Blog in China".
November
China InterActive Corp was incorporated. It was China's first interactive entertainment group. Its business scope included interactive entertainment portals, mobile value-added services, multimedia content transmission and other diversified operations.
November
NETEASE launched the free instant messaging tool POPO.
November
SINA officially signed an agreement to operate Lineage. It was China first portal to enter in the field of online games.
November
Blogcn was launched in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. The website provided blog hosting services (BSP) and was the first blog hosting service provider in China.
November
China Telecom was listed in New York and Hong Kong stock markets.
November 18
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released a report on e-commerce transactions in 2002. According to the report, the number of Internet users in China ranked second in the world, after the United States.
November 18
China Netcom spent USD 80 million in the name of Asia Netcom to acquire USD 1.9 billion worth of Asia Global Crossing Ltd.'s pan-Asia network assets. It was the first telecom operator in China that had acquired an international telecom company.
November 1
The Anti-Spam Coordination Group of Internet Society of China sponsored by Internet Society of China, 263 and SINA was set up in Beijing. The purpose of this group was to protect the legitimate interests of Internet users and e-mail service providers, to promote the fair use of Internet resources, and to regulate email services in China.
November 3
The third West Lake Internet Symposium & China Internet Summit was held. Five leading entrepreneurs in China's Internet industry, including CEO of Tencent Ma Huateng, CEO of 3721 Zhou Hongyi, CEO of 51job Zhen Ronghui, CEO of Ctrip Liang Jianzhang and President of ourgame Bao Yueqiao, attended the summit.
November 5
According to the financial report released by SINA, SINA's net operating income in the previous quarter hit a record high of USD 10.3 million, increasing by 71% compared to the same period in 2001.
November 6
According to the quarterly report released by NETEASE, in the third quarter of 2002, the total revenue of NETEASE was USD 9 million, increasing by 93.3% compared to the previous quarter. Its operating profit reached USD 3.1 million and gross margin hit a record high of 67.6%.
At the end of November
China Digital Library Project had processed 500Gb digital resources， built 18 provincial sub-centers and processed 1,500Gb digital resources.
December
The total number of enterprises that had an official website reached 216,829 nationwide. The number of enterprise websites in China was growing at a rate as high as 100%, especially in some developed provinces, cities and regions, where this rate reached as high as 145%.
December
China Mobile and Baidu entered into an agreement for the enterprise competitive intelligence system.
From December 3 to 7
The technological innovation convention "WORLD LEGEND 2002" was held successfully, marking a significant step made by Lenovo in product development.
December 11
SOHU and Beijing Post Office entered into an agreement for the construction of the post logistics distribution system for SOHU Mall.
December 16
The domain name registration authority CNNIC stopped offering domain name registration services which would be undertaken by domain name registration agencies. It was another significant restructuring of the domain name registration system since the establishment of the ".CN" domain name in China in 1990.
December 25
The network system of China's hematopoietic stem cell donor database was officially put into operation.
2002
Clienmet successfully established a cooperative relationship with Australia, expanding its operations to Australia. Later, it joined hands with chemindustry (U.S.), CE Marking (Europe), chemsoc.org (U.K.), Korea, etc., and gradually built the rudimentary form of a global chemical network community.
2002
China Mobile tested the bundled GPRS+WLAN wireless data services program in Shanghai and Chongqing, and put the program into operation on a national scale in 2003. The program was mainly targeting middle to high end customers who had demand for wireless Internet services.
April
Murong Xuechun published a novel titled "Chengdu, Please Forget Me Tonight" online. The page views of the novel climbed over 200,000 within a short time, a record high in the history of online literature.
August
Sun Jianhua published an article titled "On Blogging". It was the first comprehensive literature on conditions, history and concept of blog in China.
November 25
The first China Internet Conference was held at Shanghai International Conference Center with a theme of "calling for innovation of Internet applications".
