Baidu launched its mobile application client in public beta – “Zhangshang (or palm in English) Baidu” on Nov 25, 2009. It currently supports Symbian S60 V3/V5 and windows mobile 5/6.0/6.1 mobile OS.

Baidu Mobile App

Mobile applications include Baidu search, Baidu Post Bar (provides users with a query-based searchable community to exchange views and share knowledge and experiences), and Baidu Zhidao (or Baidu Knows; a query-based searchable community to share knowledge and experience).

Baidu Post Bar Mobile

Baidu Knows Mobile

Mobile search page includes many Baidu products (as shown in the first image above):

• Baidu Wiki
• Baidu Image search
• Baidu News
• Baidu Space
• Baidu dictionary
• Baidu stocks
• Baidu Train & Flights search
• Weather
• History
• 10 popular searches

I tested the mobile search function in Singapore; it was fast. But, it doesn’t suggest related keywords as you type.

Baidu Mobile Search "iphone"

Baidu Mobile Search Results

The first result is highlighted which made me think it was an ad at first. Then, I tested a few more keywords; the first result is always highlighted. I don’t see any sponsored search results yet.

The mobile Baidu Post Bar allows users to share a photo instantly from their mobile phones. And, users can also ask a question at Baidu Knows by uploading a photo. Unlike the normal Internet ones, the mobile apps of the two applications require no verification code, which makes the posting process easier on mobile.

Baidu Mobile Chinese Input

Another mobile product Baidu released yesterday is mobile Chinese input application, which integrates with Baidu search function with popular searches. The Chinese input technology was acquired from Day Hand.

Also read::Baidu Music Search

Do you know that 82.2% of China mobile Internet users are male? At least, it is true at the moment. It’s a cool thing for guys to surf Internet by mobile phones. Not many ladies have enjoyed mobile Internet yet.

Age. Overall China mobile phone Internet users are very young, with over 50.7% between age 18 and 24. 75.1% of China mobile Internet users are between the age of 18 and 30.

Education. Mobile Internet users are mainly distributed in high schools and below, together accounting for 61.3% of total mobile Internet users. Over 20% mobile Internet users own bachelor’s degree and above; mobile Internet seems to be attracting more highly educated users.

Geographics. Almost one quarter of China’s mobile Internet users (24.8%) are from Guangdong province.

1. Guangdong: 24.8%
2. Henan: 8.4%
3. Shandong: 7.5%
4. Hebei: 6.1%
5. Jiangsu: 6.1%
6. Sichuan: 5.4%
7. Fujian: 5.2%
8. Zhejiang: 4.3%
9. Beijing: 4.2%
10. Shanghai: 3.0%

Occupations. Students mobile Internet users are down 21.2% to 19.5% in 2009. 38.9% are white-collar workers, up 9.7% from 2008. Blue-collars are also up to 18.9% from 2008’s 13.9%.

Income. 51.7% of China mobile Internet users’ income is between RMB 1,000 and 3,000; 37.8% below RMB 1,000 (15.1% decrease compared to year 2008); 10.6% above RMB 3,000 (from 2008’s 4.8%). Don’t get misled by “income” because lower income does not necessarily mean “lower spend”. There is a high-spend group of people with very low or event little income, especially the youth born after 1990.

Data payment. Majority (90.2%) of mobile Internet users subscribe to mobile Internet at a monthly flat rate. And, only 9.8% pay by the amount of usage. 58.8%  spend on average over 50 yuan on mobile data service.

61.4% spend below 20 yuan for mobile data usage every month (down from 76.2% last year); and:

• 21-50 yuan: 26.2% (2008: 17.9%)
• 51-100 yuan: 10.3% (2008: 3.8%)
• Above 100 yuan: 2.1% (2008: 2.2%)

Apparently, mobile internet users are spending more on mobile data usage, which is likely the results of tensed competition from three telecoms.

According to three telecoms’ mid-year finance report this year, ARPU (Average revenue per user) of Chinese mobile users is 56.6 yuan. On average, mobile Internet users pay higher phone bills than normal mobile phone users.

Source: iResearch.cn

Also read::China Internet Statistics 2009 Summary

Everyone wants a piece in capitalizing on China’s recent launch of high-speed 3G services. What’s NetEase going to fight with?

NetEase will focus on three areas: augmented reality, which allows users to conduct searches based on mobile phone photos; mobile language translators; and barcode scanning.

Source: Reuters

Also read::China Mobile Internet User Behavior Study 2009

Google vice president for global mobile search, Vic Gundotra, for the first time in Beijing demoed the Chinese voice search service for mobile that will be launched in a few weeks. The service will be initially made available for Nokia S60 platform.

Chinese version of Google mobile search adopts the cloud computing and supports Mandarin, English, and a combination of two mixed voice as input method.

Source: Sina (Chinese)

Also read::Baidu Launched Baidu Mobile Apps

According to Opera, the top ten mobile websites in China (by the number of total unique users) are:

1. Kong.net
2. baidu.com
3. google.cn
4. xiaonei.com (which is now renren.com)
5. sina.com.cn
6. qq.com
7. hao123.com
8. sohu.com
9. operachina.com
10. taobao.com

Top mobile handsets in China for May 2009

1. Nokia 5000
2. Nokia 7100s
3. Nokia 5220
4. Nokia 6300
5. Nokia 7310c
6. Nokia 5130
7. Nokia 5300
8. Nokia 6120c
9. Nokia 7610s
10. Nokia 3110c

Also read::Google to Launch Chinese Voice Search on Mobile

China Publishing Science Research Institute has revealed the “National Reading Survey Report”: 18-70 year-old nationals spend on average 4.47 minutes per day reading on mobile phones, which cost on average 17.04 yuan (about US$2.5).

Over 10% of Chinese nationals, whose age is between 14 and 70, use mobile phones to read. Most of them who read with mobile phone are male, younger, higher educated, and higher income groups.

The report also shows that 63.5% of “mobile reading” users are between 18 and 29 years old. And, males with high school education and above spend the longest reading on mobile phones.

via QQ

Also read::China Mobile Internet User Behavior Study 2009

via People.com.cn,

According to a telecommunications industry operational report released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, between January and July, the number of telephone users in China rose by 48.99 million to 1.03 billion, of which the number of fixed telephone users dropped by 12.42 million to 328 million, and the number of mobile phone users rose by 61.41 million to 703 million, exceeding 700 million for the first time.

Also read::China Internet Users Reached 404 Million

ccording to a NetPop report, there are currently 102 million mobile consumers and 182 million web-enabled phones in China. The US has only 18 million mobile consumers with 57 million web-enabled phones.

Also read::Netpop Research: China Online Media Shifts to Social