China’s lead in transforming the world’s Internet is highlighted by a new report from the Boston Consulting Group entitled “The Internet’s New Billion”. Not only are China’s Netizens more numerous than any country, but they are also the most engaged.

In combining China with the other emerging giants – Brazil, Russia, India and Indonesia – there will be 1.2 billion Netizens in these so-called BRICI countries.

This is more than three times the number of Internet users in Japan and the United States combined. The driver of this growth will be Internet penetration growth rates of 9 to 20 percent annually from year-end 2009 through 2015 in the emerging giants. Nonetheless, the intensity of China’s Internet usage remains the highest among BRICI countries.

Chinese Internet users are online for an average of 2.7 hours per day – longer than users in any other BRICI country – and are projected to spend an average of 3.1 hours online each day of 2015. This trend more closely resembles usage patterns in the United States and Japan (where Internet usage spend an average of 2.3 and 2.9 hour online per day, respectively) than in any other BRICI countries.

China’s online migration offers a view of how BRICI market will evolve in terms of Internet penetration rates, the number of hours spent online per day, and e-commerce adoption.

The importance in this shift into the digital mainstream lies not just in the size and speed of the transformation of online habits, but also in who the BRICI digital consumers are.

Right now, 60 percent of BRICI Internet users are under the age of 35. As they earn ever-higher incomes and develop more complex online needs, there will be a huge opportunities for digital companies to monetize services and products.