New media reach expands further

New media in China is continuing to grow, according to a report released by the All-China Journalists Association on Wednesday.

The report noted the "profound changes in the media industry and media environment" last year following efforts by news outlets to integrate traditional and new digital media formats.

It said more than 500 million Chinese now read news on a mobile device, noting the rising popularity of social networks and news apps as a way to access information.

The market size of China's media industry was 1.3 trillion yuan ($189 billion) in 2015, an annual increase of 12.3 percent.

In the first half of last year, spending on internet advertising grew by 26.9 percent, 10 percentage points more than the same period in 2015.

Technological development has driven media reform, the report said, citing the wider application of big data, cloud computing, robots, drones and virtual reality technologies.

It also said the development of new media resulted in the creation of more channels for the public to express opinions.

It said China had 223,925 credentialed journalists as of the end of last year. Of those, 84,130 worked for newspapers and 6,007 for periodicals.