Trader in Asia

These two university has nothing to do and they just want to make themselves famous – called them EASTLIFE BOYs.:-)

China search engine Baidu is again pulling away from the global giants Google and Yahoo! in terms of 2006 search market share in China. Google has its China search market share dropped to 25.3% this year from 33% last year, while Baidu has increased from 52% in 2005 to 62.1%, according to a recent research report by CNNIC.

* Baidu: 62.1%
* Google: 25.3%
* Yahoo!: 4.8%
* Sogou (Sohu): 3.2%
* iAsk (Sina): 1.2%
* Other: 3.4%

The research report is based on the survey conducted to 4500 people in metropolitan areas of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Other interesting findings in the report include:

* Baidu has the highest brand recognition among the search engines in China with 86.5%, compared to 64% for Google, 38.5% for Yahoo!, 36% for Sogou (Sohu), and 15% for iAsk (Sina).

* Only 16.3% users are aware of Google’s English name, while 31.9% recognize its Chinese name “Guge�. Almost 80% users do not like Google’s Chinese name. One of the reasons for choosing Baidu as their preferred search engine over Google is that users have no problem spelling “Baidu�.

* Google is the first option of non-student users with monthly income of over 3,000 yuan. Basically most Beijing users (mostly students) continue to stick with Baidu, while more Shanghai users (mostly non-students) favor Google. However, it is believed Baidu has started to capture Google’s non-student core users and has shaken Google’s position in the high-end user market.

* 76.3% users make use of more than one search engine.

* 49.3% users reckon the most important reason for them to use a search engine is the relevancy of its search results. The second and third reasons are personal habit and speed respectively.

* 72.8% users only use the main web search on their first choice search engines, let alone other vertical search functions. Breaking down into search engines it is 80.8% for Sogou, 77.8% for Google, 70.5% for Baidu, and 60.5% for Yahoo!.

* Bulletin boards provided by Baidu and free email services provided by Sina (iAsk), Sohu (Sogou) and Yahoo! are also reasons that users are being drawn to these search engines.