China Search Engine Market
Baidu is still very much in the lead and expanding it’s reach in the Chinese war of the search engines. At least according to Shanghai based company Iresearch.
The data used to come to this conclusion is based on address bar search, Alexa data and a survey they did themselves.
It’s hard to interpret the data as I can’t find so much on the questions they asked. Also Alexa is not always the best source as it can easily be manipulated.
In it’s press release Iresearch is touting:
For Baidu, its successful IPO on Nasdaq in August, 2005 has created the most splendid stock market record for Chinese companies listed in US, which has made Baidu a highlight for the media and greatly increase its public awareness…..
Some favoritism may be the 4th data source.
Baidu though, is likely to be the most popular choice in China for search. Especially among the younger users who love searching for illegal mp3’s. [See Baidu China post]
For what it’s worth here is the diagram: