China has almost half a billion online gamers: Report

China had 494 million online game players by June, accounting for 57.8 per cent of all netizens in the country, according to a report on China's Internet development released Friday.

Among them, 468 million play games on mobile phones, 9.23 million more than the previous year, Xinhua news agency reported.

In the first half of the year, the online gaming population increased by 9.72 million, said the report released by the China Internet Network Information Center.

From January to June, cloud service was highlighted in industrial development, which was widely adopted by game developers and created a better user experience.

The online game market had been expanding, with domestic game firms continuing to invest in overseas game developers and beefing up product export, said the report.