Search engine market is boosting generally, whilst complementary competition pattern emerges in the marketplace

Experiencing the significant development in “the search year” in 2005, Chinese search market is still prospering in 2006. Other than the competition among Baidu, Google and Yahoo!, the trend of complementary in function and content emerges, which forms a both competitive and complementary pattern in the marketplace. In order to have an in-depth understanding of Chinese search market development, on September 13, 2006, China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) issues the latest “Chinese search engine market survey report 2006”, following the 2005 version issued in August 2005.This report is deemed to present an objective description regarding such a market situation through authentic data analysis.

Baidu still leads the primary-chosen market, whilst Google wins in secondary chosen market.

CNNIC’s report discovers that among primary-chosen search engines, baidu’s market share is increasing constantly to 62.1%. This means more than 60% internet users are going to choose Baidu as the first option when searching online. Google’s market share in this segment is 25.3%, decreased 8 percent points when compared with the performance at same period last year.

Google while lost its primary-chosen market, it still held the leading position on secondary-chosen market. CNNIC report finds there are 76.3% users utilizing two or more search engines. This implies that any single search engine is unlikely to satisfy all users’ needs so that users have to select one or more other search engines to fulfill their search.

Searching through Webpage dominates among three main search methods

CNNIC’s report finds three main search methods: search through webpage, address bar searching, and toolbar searching. Among these methods, search through webpage accounts for 76.7%, address bar searching accounts for 31.0% and toolbar searching accounts for 14.4%. Exclusively using of web searching reaches 57%, which shows it’s dominant position on this field.

Yahoo!’s users Loyalty rate rises the fastest; the awareness rate of priced ranking is merely one third

Users’ loyalty degree refers to the rate of users, who are now still using same search engine as primary choice, among primary users in the first half year. CNNIC’s research shows Yahoo! appears to be the most rapid growing search engine product in regard to users’ loyalty degree. Compared with the same period last year, the figure rises 15.6 percentage points, which implies that users are most likely to keep using Yahoo! as soon as they choose Yahoo! at first time.

CNNIC’s report also finds there is only one third of search engine users have ever heart of priced ranking. Users who can distinguish between ordinary searching result and priced ranking searching result occupy only 5.1%. Even if search engines have been developing many other functions rather than searching, there is still 72.8% of the entire user group that stress they use search function only.

Sohu-Sogou is the most “matured” search engine

This report finds an interesting conclusion that different groups of users have respective interests on different search engines. According to the age analysis of users, Baidu is the “youngest” search engines, for its users who are under 23 years old account for the most proportion, known as 52.7%. In contrast, such rate in Sohu-Sogou is 19.7%, making itself the most “matured” search engine.

Google also enjoys its overwhelming advantage on high-end users, although its market share in primary market ranks as the second. CNNIC’s report defines high-end users as non-student person, age 25 or above, bachelor’s degree or above and with 3000 yuan or above monthly income. Result shows “white collar” users, who are featured as well-educated, higher purchase capability, are more likely to use Google, moreover, corporate users reach 48.5%. In contrast, student users prefer Baidu, in which half of its users are known as students. Besides, result also indicates that Beijing people prefer Baidu, while shanghai people prefer Google.

Baidu has the highest brand awareness, whilst “Guge” (Google in Chinese character) needs further promotion

Brand awareness rate refers to the extent that search engines’ brand are known among users. In terms of search engines brand awareness rate, Baidu ranks the first with 86.5%, whilst Google and Yahoo! rank the second (64%) and the third(38.5%) respectively. Additionally, Sohu-Sogou and Sina iAsk rank as the forth and the fifth. On the other hand, the brand awareness rate of Google’s Chinese character “Guge” is merely 16.3%, partially because the promotion of this Chinese name is relative late.


When Baidu and Google have become a verb, we can understand how intensive the user is to rely on search engines. The constant increase of search engine usage implies the great market perspective of search engines in China, in which there is also a big commercial potential. The survey report issued by CNNIC is comprised of a variety of crucial data of Chinese search engine market, including usage experience of search engines and priced ranking, users characteristics classified by different search engines and the analysis of reasons regarding users moving direction among different search engines, etc. It objectively drew out a full scale market situation of Chinese search engines market in 2006. It is believed that this report will provide valuable reference for decision-making for both mass Internet users and corporations.



Please find more information at:
http://www.cnnic.cn/index/0E/manual/102/index.htm