China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) in Beijing issued “2008 Chinese search engine market advertisers research report” and “2008 Chinese search engine user behavior study“. This is also a CNNIC published for four consecutive years in the field study report.

Report shows that 64.9% of search marketing advertisers use multiple search engines, search engine marketing (SEM) model is more applicable to medium-sized enterprises. The percentage of advertisers with annual turnover of one to five millions has exceeded half of total number of advertisers, to 61.1%. Similar to International market, most searches concentrate on brand related searches.

Bt the end of 2008, the Chinese search engine users has reached the scale 203 million people. The report also shows that search engine user’s income level is higher than the national average of Internet users.

Other findings include:

• Among all companies in China who used search as a marketing tool, 86% used Baidu and 60.2% used Google.
• Among all companies who just used one search engine for SEM, 72.2% selected Baidu; among those who chose multiple search engines, there were 93.1% who selected Baidu.
• Only 35.1% SEM advertisrs chose to advertise on just ONE search engine.
• 49.3% advertisers are in manufacturing industry; 12.5% in IT; 10.3% in trade; 6% in service. Advertisers for all other industries are less than 5% except pharmaceutical and chemical industry.
• Among all companies who participated in the survey, 14.1% is willing to do SEM and invest more in SEM. 55.3% WILL do SEM and keep the current spend level. 4.6% will do SEM but will lower the spend. 7.8% will not and 18.2% are not sure.
• 76.4% companies doing SEM invest more than 5000 yuan annually.

Chinese Search Engine User Behavior Study

• When no ideal results  can be found after the first search, 60.5% users will change keywords to search again. 46.6% will user longer or shorter keywords to search again. 40% will change search engine; 30.4% will search again in the search results. 26.1% give up searching.
• 40.8% search engine users have monthly income of below 1000 yuan (US$146.21). 25.9% between 1001-2000 (USD 146 to USD 292). 33.3% above 2000 yuan (USD 292). Average income of search engine users is higher than that of Internet users, showing higher commercial value.
• 70.1% of Chinese search engine users are below 30 years old; 31.7% are students. Among those non-student users, 30.3% received high school education as highest education, 28.8% received diploma, and 25.1% received university degree.
• What’s worth mentioning is that, Sogou (sohu’s search engine) market share continued to climb up and 2.9% of search engine users select sogou as the first choice; 1.6% chose Yahoo.