CHENGDU, March 30 (Xinhua) -- The number of internet audio-and-video users in China reached 1.04 billion as of December 2022, surpassing that of instant messaging services, according to a new report.

The research report on the development of China's internet audio-and-video industry was released before the opening of the 10th China Internet Audio & Video Convention on Thursday. The event is being held in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province.

The general market size of China's internet audio-and-video industry exceeded 700 billion yuan (about 101.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2022, according to the report.

Short videos are proving popular among diverse categories of users, making them an important part of the Internet infrastructure, said the report.

The user number for live-streaming services hit 751 million, making it the second largest internet audio-and-video application category after the short video.

The report also shows that online audio-and-video applications have become a means of information and knowledge acquisition apart from entertainment. More than 30 percent of short video users have a demand for news and knowledge.