In general, Baidu market share slightly slips; surprised to see the increased Sogou’s market share.
China IntelliConsulting Corporation (CIC) has published its semi-annual survey report on China search engine market.
The report shows Baidu has managed its market share increased over the last six months in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the three major cities surveyed.
Google saw its market share bounced up slightly, whereas both Yahoo and Sogou have been further marginalized.
Sogou has managed to rise to 3.1% in 2008 from 2.2% a year ago. Data from Google Trends seems to tell the similar trend:
CIC survey covers 18 cities which are categorized as four major groups:
- National Hub Cities: The three major cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou
- The Coastal Cities: Dalian, Tianjin, Qingdao, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Xiamen, and Shenzhen
- The Central Provincial Capital Cities: Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, and Changsha
- The Western Regional Hub Cities: Chongqing, Chengdu and Xi’an
Google has lower brand awareness and accounts for less market share in Central provincial capital cities and Western hub cities than in the three major cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Google’s market share in China’s rural areas is even less than 10%. However, the good news for Google is that 34.6% believe Google is better than Baidu in terms of search result relevancy, 29.0% believe the opposite.
