www.Baidu.com Dominate China Search Market
Baidu Dominate China Search Market
Baidu.com is the most used search engine in the Chinese market, with a 57.8% share of searches while Google.cn chimes in at #2 with 31.8% of the search share. The report also says that Google popularity slipped over the past couple of years (probably due to censorship or blocking) before reentering the Chinese market with the licensed & locally based Google China.
The report by iResearch also showed that 197.06 million Chinese people searched using a major search engine last year, roughly 87.4% of the Internet users in China.
According to iResearch report 2010, Baidu is China's clear traffic leader. The report offered these market share numbers:
• Baidu: 57.8%
• Google: 31.8%
• Sohu: 4.6%
• Sina: 4.0%
• Yahoo: 3.7%
• Others: 3.3%
One reason for Baidu's popularity is its music search function, which allows users to find downloadable music. Google's recently announced music search feature works on Google.cn, but it links to music stores rather than music files on the open web.
Baidu, by contrast, offers links to downloadable music files, many of which are presumably illegal copies—and this may pose a problem for Baidu if authorities in China continue to crack down on illegal music sites.
