According to WeChat, search ads will support six promotion goals, including WeChat Official Account promotion, sales lead collection, products promotion, branding events promotion, app promotion, and WeChat Mini Games promotion.

It supports three landing page types, namely, native promotion page, WeChat Mini Program, and custom link. And, based on the search ability of WeChat, WeChat search advertising can support the sale of brand keywords, keywords words, generic keywords, and generic keywords.

At present, Tencent’s mobile search advertising scenarios mainly include WeChat Search and QQ Browser search. In these scenarios, advertisers can do brand and performance marketing.

Since the launch of search feature on WeChat in 2017, it has been at the top of the main interface.

However, after five years of iteration, it has now become a “global search” that includes WeChat Moments, Official Account, and Mini Programs from the early days when it could only search local chat records and contacts.

At the same time, the search scope has also expanded to all content and services related to search queries in WeChat.

WeChat Mini Programs Insights

Sogou achieved solid results in Q2 2018 with revenue increasing 43% year-on-year to US$301.4 million and non-GAAP net income up by 58% to US$38.2 million, according to its financial results. That was greatly driven by the twin growth engines – search and mobile keyboard – and AI-focused strategy.

Search and search-related revenues were $270.6 million, a 45% increase year-on-year. The increase was primarily due to the strong growth in auction-based pay-for-click services, driven by improved monetization and continued traffic growth in mobile search.

Auction-based pay-for-click services accounted for 84.7% of search and search-related revenues, compared to 83.0% in the corresponding period in 2017.

In search, Sogou differentiated services from Baidu in key verticals, such as healthcare. It also deepened its partnership with WeChat by providing more search services such as the encyclopedia and interactive Q&A platform.

Its AI-powered innovations drove broader adoption of the Sogou Mobile Keyboard, with DAU increasing by 36% year-on-year to 380 million in Q2 2018. Especially in June, Sogou Mobile Keyboard handled approximately 300 million voice inputs on average per day, up 54% year-on-year, and remained China’s largest voice mobile application.

Meanwhile, Sogou also applied its AI capabilities to enhance the competitiveness of the recently launched hardware products, such as Sogou Travel Translator and Sogou Smart Recording Translator.

Baidu also had a good quarter in Q2 2018. Check out China mobile internet market forecast 2018-2020 here.

WeChat boutique stores don’t have a direct entry path from the main menu and are triggered to display after the brand terms are searched.

So far, only 12 brands have launched their WeChat Boutique Store, including Cartier, Gucci, Lancome, Longchamp, Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors, Montblanc, Nike, Starbucks, Swarovski, Tiffany, and Zara.

The WeChat Boutique Store looks more like a landing page, triggered by search and similar to Baidu brandzone product. All links on the LV Boutique Store page direct to one of its official website pages.

Tencent has set up search application department under  WeChat Business Unit. WeChat launched search in May 2017 and enhanced its search results with data from mini-program in July 2017. It also tested a search advertising product around the same period.

Continue to read: The spending power of 250 million Chinese post-95s

Sogou, one of the top Chinese search engines, revenues reached US$257 million in Q3 2017, up 55% year-over-year and 22% quarter-over-quarter.

In Q3 2017, Sogou continued to expand market share in mobile search, propelled by robust traffic growth. Mobile search traffic grew by 38% year-over-year, driving a 24% increase in total search traffic.

Total revenue reached $257 million, an increase of 55% a year ago and 22% from the previous quarter, continuously outpacing industry growth.

Related: Baidu delivered solid financial results in the third quarter of 2017 with top line increasing 29% year over year

Sogou made new progress with its product collaboration with Tencent. Specifically, Tencent began testing the integration of Sogou Search into WeChat, which allows its users to access all internet information through Sogou’s general search function from within WeChat.

Sogou has also advanced its AI technology research and product applications. Its technologies in natural language processing continued to enable the transition from search into Q&A.

As Sogou has filed a registration statement on Form F-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Committee relating to a proposed initial public offering.

Tencent has enhanced WeChat search features this week and feed the search results with data from WeChat Mini-Programs.

WeChat users can search a specific stock by name or the stock symbol. The stock information is shown directly in WeChat.

Users can also check exchange rates, flights information, mobile phone number location, and the meaning of an English word on WeChat by searching.

The search results are directly shown on WeChat; and, users don’t need to open another page, which is very similar to the top Chinese search engine Baidu:

WeChat included external sources in in-app search results pages (SERP) this April while it previously only searches chats, WeChat Moments, and Official Accounts. And, it launched a search section on WeChat in May 2017 and started testing search ads for mini-programs in June 2017.

China smartphone shipments overview Q1 2017

WeChat team announced a new feature over the weekend that makes WeChat Mini-Program discoverable by keywords searching.

WeChat Mini-Program started with its discoverability limited to QR code scans (both online and offline) and the names of mini-programs; and, it expanded to WeChat Official Account integrations.

The new feature allows Mini-Program developers to submit up to 10 keywords for approval for each mini-program with which the WeChat users can discover it by conducting searches, effective from 9 June 2017. Developers can make the changes up to three times per month.

Keywords must be related to the features or brands of submitted mini-programs.The ranking algorithm includes factors such as the relevance of the keyword, the quality of the mini-program, user usage, and etc.

However, this search keywords feature is not applicable to Store Mini-Programs.

Developers can also check the performance of the keywords (visits in the last 7 days) in the admin area.

WeChat launched WeChat Search section last month, arousing speculations of its potential threat to Baidu in China’s mobile search market. The new “search keywords” feature will likely drive more search queries on WeChat.

WeChat Mini-Program has high penetrations in mobile payment, online videos, maps and navigation, e-commerce, online music, group buying, and Weibo according to data from QuestMobile.

WeChat launched Search and Top Stories sections in the updated WeChat iOS 6.5.8. These two sections are not yet available for Android smartphone users.

The search results include articles from WeChat Official Accounts and WeChat Moments. However, some keywords could trigger “Current Events” category, which includes external news sources. According to WeChat, these external news sources are articles shared on WeChat.

Tencent set up a search application department under WeChat Business Unit last month. This new feature is the latest outcome. And, that’s not all. WeChat users can also now search the conversations inside the chats and filter by dates, images and video, file, URL, music, and group members.

This is a very useful feature as many users share files, images, and URLs with each other on WeChat, which can be more easily accessed with this new feature. The bad news is that it’s right now only available on the recently updated WeChat iOS version.

WeChat Top Stories is a section for personalized article recommendations. The algorithm includes factors such as followed Official Accounts, friends’ sharing in Moments, geographic locations, content quality, user experience, and etc.

Both Search and Top Stories are not really new features but an indication of the importance of search and content on WeChat. WeChat Search is not ready to take on Baidu in China’s mobile search market. But, it shows more potential what WeChat could bring to Tencent’s revenue growth in the future with its 938 million MAU and developing AI technologies.

A quick & easy retail solution on WeChat Mini-Program

Baidu has 78.2% share of China’s mobile search market by the total number of mobile search queries in the first quarter of 2017.

Sogou had 7.9% mobile search market share, followed by Easou (4.9%).

China search engine market overview Q1 2017

Baidu had about 23% less active online marketing customers (451,000) in Q1 2017 compared to Q1 2016. But, its revenue per online marketing customer increased by 27% to 32,200 yuan ($4,678).

WeChat, launched by Sogou in 2014, is testing with external sources in its search results. Is it going to be a threat in China’s mobile search market? Share your thoughts in the comments.

StatCounter data shows Baidu’s market share was 76.05% in China search engines market in April 2017, followed by Shenma (8.78%), 360 Search (7.87%), Sogou (3.31%), and Google (1.84%).

Baidu is more dominant in China’s mobile search market with over 82% market share, followed by Shenma (13.79%) according to StatCounter.

China search engine market overview Q1 2017

Shenma search was a co-founded mobile search engine by UCWeb and Alibaba in 2013; and, Alibaba acquired UCWeb in 2014.

WeChat has included external sources in in-app search results pages (SERP) while it previously only searches chats, WeChat Moments, and Official Accounts. Some users start to see a “news” section in the WeChat SERP which includes external news sources.

The search box is on top of WeChat main user interfaces (Chats; Contacts; Discover); I conducted a search for “Jay Chou”, a very famous Taiwanese celebrity, and saw the following results:

WeChat groups search results in sections (left): emoji, WeChat Moments, music (songs shared in WeChat Moments in the last 30 days), and related articles (center). The related articles have now included external sources other than official accounts articles such as the one on the right of the screen capture.

Related: Use WeChat Index to monitor the trend on WeChat

Most are articles from Official Accounts; and, I found two external sources Zhihu and Sogou Baike. It can’t be certain whether they are included previously not part of ongoing update as Tencent merged its search engine Soso with Sogou in 2013 and funded the Q&A platform Zhihu.

Currently, not all users see external sources or the new “news” section in the search results on WeChat. Even one can see that section with one keyword, not all search terms can trigger the display of the news section. This feature seems still under testing.

WeChat opens external web pages directly; and, in most cases, the loading speed and user experience are not as good as those from Official Accounts. If Tencent is to include external sources to WeChat search, it could benefit by adopting a similar approach as Facebook’s Instant Articles, Google’s AMP, or Baidu’s MIP.

Tencent reported 889 million monthly active (MAU) users on WeChat in Q4 2016, which makes WeChat potentially a serious player and a challenger to Baidu in China’s mobile search market.

Baidu has 78% market share by total revenues in China’s search engine market in 2016. This market will grow from 76.1 billion yuan (US$11.05 bn) to 113.4 billion yuan (US$16.47 bn) in 2019. A huge MAU doesn’t necessarily equal to a good deal of search volumes.

Can WeChat seriously challenge Baidu’s mobile search? Not in the near future. A huge WeChat MAU doesn’t necessarily equal to a good deal of search volumes. And, the quality of the mobile search algorithm and experiences are not something Tencent can easily beat.

Update (24 Apr 2017): Tencent has set up search application department under  WeChat Business Unit, according to Leiphone and confirmed by Tencent. The search application department is responsible for WeChat’s search business, reading recommendation business, AI technology realization, WeChat data platform development, and data capabilities.

Continue to read→ Top WeChat stats and trends 2016

Mobile users are sometimes forced to initiate or download an app to continue viewing further content while visiting a web page via search engine, which can be quite annoying to users. 

Take one of the popular audio sharing platform Ximalaya as an example:

When a user enters the website via mobile search, it interrupts the user journey and forces the users to download or use the mobile app. Baidu mobile search will significantly lower the rankings of such pages; so, companies should avoid implementing such practices.

Optimizing for Baidu Mobile Search

Domains and servers. Baidu recommends simple and short domain names as they are easier for remember. Businesses should select stable and good performing servers. Baidu also recommends fully-responsive HTML5 designs to build websites. Keep in mind that page loading speed is a very important ranking factor.

Machine readable. Baidu crawls, processes, and indexes mobile web pages via Baiduspider2.0. Currently, Baiduspider can only understand text content and may have difficulty extracting content and links from flash, images, ajax, iframe, and javascript. Use “alt” tag on images.

Flat structure. Baidu recommends mobile sites should have a clear structure and shallow link depth, which allow users to quickly obtain useful information and search engines to quickly understand the structure level. Tree structures are recommended in three levels: homepage » category » details page.

Linking. The ideal site structure is flat tree structure, from the home page to the content page level as little depth as possible. Every page should link to the upper-level page, the next level page, and pages with related content. Important web pages should be near the home page.

In addition, breadcrumb navigation is also important to have for mobile websites.

External links are important for mobile page rankings, including links from PC only pages to mobile pages. Be reminded poor quality external links have a negative impact on your Baidu rankings. You can use Baidu Webmasters to analyze the external links.

URL structure. If your website designs different pages specifically for mobile users, Baidu recommends the use of mobile home page with m.a.com/3g.a.com/wap.a.com (the use of subdirectory such as www.a.com/m/ is not recommended), category pages with m.a.com/n1/、m.a.com/n2/ (it’s better if n1 and n2 can be directly accessed). Details pages should have simple and shorter URLs with few parameters. Different pages with the same content should use 301 Redirect to one unique URL.

Anchor text. The simpler the description of the anchor text is written, the easier it is for the user to understand the purpose of the page. The user discovers that your page is a link from other pages, and the anchor text is the only introduction Baiduspider understands the page.

Anchor text must be accurate; and, incorrect descriptions could get your page penalized.

Tools. You can use Baidu Webmasters to submit a mobile sitemap, check mobile indexing status, and submit 404 removed pages.

If Baidu could not locate proper mobile pages, it will create a transformed mobile page for better user experience. However, it’s not as good as fully responsive HTML5 designed web pages.

Page Title. You should have unique and relevant title for each mobile page, limited to 17 Chinese characters. If more than 17 characters in title, it will be forced to two rows or removed when it’s over 24 characters. Keep the most important words in the beginning of the title. If your brand is well known in China, keep your brand in the title.

Meta data.

Having a unique “description” tag for each page is important. You should also use “applicable-device” tag to inform Baidu of your website mobile adaption status:

• If your web pages are only good for desktop browsing, add <meta name=”applicable-device” content=”pc”>
• If your web pages are only good for mobile devices, add <meta name=”applicable-device” content=”mobile”>
• If your website uses fully-responsive design, add <meta name=”applicable-device” content=”pc,mobile”>

For local content, you can use geo meta tag; for example, if your website targets users in Beijing, you can use “location” meta tag:

<meta name=”location” content=”province=北京;city=北京; coord=116.306522891,40.0555055968″>

Coord is the latitude and longitude coordinates of the page information.

Content design. Baidu recommends 14pt font size for main content (no smaller than 10px), and line spacing of (0.42~0.6)*font size (no lower than 0.2*font size).

If the main content contains multiple images, the images should be set to uniform width and positions. When the content contains multiple text links, the recommended font size is 14px and 13px for the vertical spacing. If the font size is 16px, the vertical spacing recommended is 14px. The clickable text links area is no smaller than 40px

Related post: Baidu version of Google AMP

The number of mobile search users in China reached 628 million in Q3 2016, an increase of 1.29% QoQ according to iiMedia Research.

Baidu still led mobile search market in China with 44.5% usage ratio, followed by Shenma (sm.cn; 20.8%), Sogou (16.2%), 360 (11.8%). Shenma search is a joint venture set up by Alibaba and UC in 2013.

66.8% China online users conducted mobile search on mobile browsers; 24.6% on mobile search apps according to iiMedia. 35.3% and 33.9% users are interested in voice search and image search respectively.

The number of China mobile search engine users reached 590 million in Q3 2015 and the ratio of lower educated users have increased.

China mobile search engine users reached 590 million, a YoY increase of 19.9% and QoQ increase of 3.9% according to iiMedia Research.

The penetration rate of smartphone search users in China reached 88.3%.

With high penetration of smartphones and different mobile categories of apps among the young generation, 26 years old to 35 years old users account for 56.8% of the total, followed by users between 18 to 25 years old (16.5%).

Junior high school and college graduates account for the majority of mobile search engines users. Junior high school students account for 26.3%; and users of primary school and below 10.4%. Mobile search users with low education are gradually increasing, due to the growing popularity of smartphones, integrated functions of the mobile search and simpler operation.

About 76.5% users search on mobile phones every day, of which 65.0% of users search once to five times each day and 21.7% search six to ten times.

Search engines on the mobile end help users get whatever they need any time and any place which provides convenience. Increasing functions and interfaces of the mobile search engine are also main factors for many users. Mobile web browser remains the primary search entry point as adopted by 58.8% mobile search users.

Most users have a specific brand preference when searching on mobile. Baidu still has the largest share, accounting for 44.1%; Shenma, with strong traffic from UC browser, accounts for 17.4%, followed by Easou, Sogou and Haosou. About 40.7% users wouldn’t use other search engines.

71.6% users search for news through smartphones. Local affairs, novels, websites, Question & Answer are also frequently-searched content.

Scanning the QR code to search for information is a widely used mobile search method that 56.8% of users used once due to high accuracy and convenience. 32.1% of users still search by inputting words.

Ads, less optimized websites, slow network and low integration between search words and search content are major existing problems against better user experience.

The rapid development of China mobile search engine industry has formed a relatively complete industrial structure. The popularity of smartphones and technology further promotes the development of mobile search market. How to meet the needs of individual users and properly manage ads placement become main problems of mobile search engine providers.

Also read: China Mobile Apps Market Insights in H1 2015

Sogou, one of the top three search engines in China, revenues were US$116 million, up 66% YoY and down 3% QoQ according to Sohu’s financial results.

Mobile search made a greater contribution to Sogou’s revenue, and Sogou expects to grow substantially faster than the overall search industry in China.

Mr. Xiaochuan Wang, CEO of Sogou, commented,

In the first quarter, Sogou maintained its solid growth momentum. Our in-depth cooperation with Tencent, in particular with Weixin, has brought unique capabilities to our mobile search and further enhanced our competitiveness.

Aggregate search traffic rose by 60% year-over-year while mobile search traffic jumped 130%. It’s expected that mobile search traffic will surpass PC traffic at some point of 2015. Our financial performance was impressive as well. Quarterly revenues were $116 million, up 66% year-on-year, and we achieved non-GAAP net income of $16 million.

Sogou revenues are expected to be between US$135 million and US$145 million in Q2 2015; this implies a sequential increase of 16% to 25% and an annual growth of 48% to 59%.

Read more: Baidu, Sogou among Top 5 Biggest Search Engines in the World

The number of indexed mobile websites by Baidu increased by 105% as of the end of 2014 according to Baidu. Baidu mbile search revenue surpassed that of desktop computers in Dec 2014.
The main problems of mobile websites from search engine friendliness perspective in 2014 found by Baidu are:

1. Browser detection using the user agent is not appropriately set
2. Title and meta description didn’t meet the requirement
3. Geo-redirection targeting Baidu spider
4. Inappropriate website information architecture
5. The important content can not be accessed

Read more: Utilize Baidu Image Network for More Traffic

According to data of EnfoDesk, the total transaction value of China mobile marketing market was RMB47.22 billion (US$7.67 billion) in 2014 with an increase of 251.7% from the same period of 2013.

Driven by the popularity of smartphones, devaluation of online traffic, increasing number of China netizens as well as increasing usage time on mobile device, China mobile marketing market is developing rapidly nowadays.

EnfoDesk estimates that in 2017, total transaction value of China mobile marketing market will exceed RMB188.19 billion (US$30.57 billion). Having been through the early stage from 2013 to 2014, China mobile marketing market is showing good tendency and then advertisers will invest more in mobile marketing.

Also read: PwC Recommending Video and Coupon for China Mobile Advertising

Sohu total revenues were US$477 million, up 24% year-over-year and 11% quarter-over-quarter while Sogou, part of Sohu, revenues were US$119 million, up 70% year-over-year and 12% quarter-over-quarter according to Sohu announced financial results.

Sogou’s mobile keyboard is the top Chinese input application on both iPhones and Android phones while mobile search also showed strong momentum.

In 2014, Sogou continued on its rapid growth trajectory upon the smooth integration with Soso, Tencent’s search brand. Sogou now provides a full range of search services for the vast number of Tencent users.

Sogou have deepened  cooperation with Tencent’s WeChat. Following the launch of a unique function that allows Sogou users to search content published by WeChat official accounts, in their latest version of our mobile search App, they added a new feature called “WeChat Headlines“, which surfaces the most popular and breaking news stories being shared on WeChat.

Sogou have seen robust search traffic growth with mobile traffic growing over 150% in the past twelve months.

Sohu Performance Highlights in 2014

• Total revenues were US$1.7 billion, up 19% year-over-year.
• Brand advertising revenues were US$541 million, up 26% year-over-year. Of this, revenues of Sohu Media Portal were US$198 million, up 9% year-over-year. Revenues of Sohu Video were US$176 million, up 61% year-over-year.
• Sogou revenues were US$386 million, up 79% year-over-year.
• Online game revenues were US$652 million, down 3% year-over-year.
• GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Inc. was US$171 million or US$4.43 loss per fully-diluted share. Non-GAAP net loss attributable toSohu.com Inc. was US$120 million or US$3.11 loss per fully-diluted share

Total revenues for 2014 were US$1.7 billion, up 19% compared with 2013.

Total online advertising revenues, which include revenues from the brand advertising and search and Web directory businesses for 2014, were US$899 million, up 43% compared with 2013.

Brand advertising revenues for 2014 were US$541 million, up 26% compared with 2013. The year-over-year increase was mainly due to increases in revenues from the online video and real estate advertising businesses. Of this, revenues of Sohu Media Portal were US$198 million, up 9% year-over-year. Revenues of Sohu Video were US$176 million, up 61% year-over-year.

Search and Web directory revenues for 2014 were US$358 million, up 80% compared with 2013. The year-over-year increase was mainly driven by the search business as a result of increases in the number of paid clicks and higher average cost per click.

Online game revenues for 2014 were US$652 million, down 3% compared with 2013. The decrease reflected a decline in revenues from TLBB, following the strategic decision to simplify its gameplay, and from Wartune and DDTank, as both games have now entered a mature phase in China. The decreases were partially offset by the successful launch of a new mobile game, TLBB 3D, and a new MMO, Fantasy Frontier Online.

Read more: China E-commerce Market in 2014

Qihoo 360 launched its new search brand “Haosou” this week. Haosou.com is online now and its previous search engine domain so.com is now redirecting traffic to haosou.com.

360 changed its search engine brand name and its logo trying to help users easily remember and understand. One insider believed that Haosou is more applicable in mobile internet market and Haosou could be sub-brand of Qihoo 360 which can make it an independent search brand.

Qi Xiangdong also said that Haosou.com can provide more opportunities for 360 search business, which made 360 search business adapt to mobile internet’s development.

According to China Mobile gateway traffic data recently leaked on Weibo, Shen Ma Search (m.sm.cn) was the second largest mobile search engine in June after Baidu. 360 Search had a target of gaining a market share of 35% by the end of 2014, which seemed achievable if the CNZZ data is solid.

Search engines’ revenue from mobile search was the key driving force for China search engine market in Q3 2014. The revenue from mobile search increased RMB5.53 billion ($0.9 billion) representing 59.9% of total growth from same period of prior year.

“Sou” in Chinese means search while “Hao” means good; Haosou brand’s own explanation is that, it’s a good search engine and does not do bad things seeming to insinuate scams that the leading search engine Baidu faced in the past year.

Qihoo 360 Technology has launched its own ad network in July 2014 which at the moment is more an affiliate network for its own products as it pays when a conversion is counted.

Also read: China Mobile Search User Behaviors in H1 2014

In Q3 2014, total transaction value of China search engine market was RMB16.45 billion ($2.67 billion) with increase of 11.7% quarter on quarter and 50.6% year on year according to data from iResearch.

China search engine market was keeping its stable growth in consecutive three quarters in 2014 and it is still performing well. In Q3 2014, Baidu accounted for 82.2% market share in China search engine market by revenue, ranking top, followed by Google China, Sougou and 360 search.

Search engines’ revenue from mobile search was the key driving force for China search engine market in Q3 2014. The revenue from mobile search increased RMB5.53 billion ($0.9 billion) representing 59.9% of total growth from same period of prior year.

Sogou’s search and others revenues for the third quarter of 2014 were US$98 million, up 88% YoY and 16% QoQ, mainly due to increases in the number of paid clicks and higher average cost per click according to Sohu’s released financial results for Q3 2014.

As shown above, according another Chinese research company Analysis’s EnfoDesk data, Baidu accounted for 79.45% market share by revenue in Q3 2014 including revenue from overseas but excluding revenue from channels, ranking top, followed by Google China (12.04%) and Sougou (including Soso) (5.53%) in Q3 2014 in China.

Including revenue from overseas and channels, Baidu had 77.31% market share, followed by Google China (10.41%) and Sougou (8.27%).

Excluding revenue from overseas, Baidu had 85.63% market share by revenue, followed by Sougou (6.24%) and Google China (4.78%) in Q3 2014.

Google China’s market share was decreasing continuously as it only accounted for 4.78% in China search engine providers market by revenue not counting revenue from overseas.

Sogou cooperated with social platform to strengthen its status in Q3 2014. It provided mobile search service on Wechat official platform and had access to hundreds of Wechat official accounts to establish database.

Also read: China Mobile Search User Behaviors in H1 2014

Sogou, Sohu’s search arm, made progress in both search and input method in the third quarter of 2014. In search, aggressive marketing initiatives helped enhance the brand recognition of Sogou. Sogou mobile search traffic grew by nearly 20% quarter-over-quarter.

Sogou’s search and others revenues for the third quarter of 2014 were US$98 million, up 88% YoY and 16% QoQ, mainly due to increases in the number of paid clicks and higher average cost per click according to Sohu’s released financial results for Q3 2014.

In September, Sogou’s mobile Keyboard became the No.1 app on the iOS China app store’s ranking table once Apple finally allowed third party input method software to work on its iOS 8 system.

Facing Baidu’s dominance in China’s search engine market, Sogou also struggles to be the number two and its market share fell in the third place after Baidu and Google in Q2 search engine market. Sogou has a lot to do even after the merger with Soso or the launch of Wechat search feature.

Find out more China search engine news here.

Total number of China mobile search users exceeded 467 million in H1 2014 according to iiMedia Research. It is believed that user growth rate is slowing down since mobile penetration rate is reaching a ceiling. 

According to China Mobile gateway traffic data recently leaked on Weibo, Shen Ma Search (m.sm.cn) was the second largest mobile search engine in June after Baidu.

It is estimated that competition of mobile search  will focus on optimization of user experience, innovation of products function and improvement for search layout.

Baidu Ice Bucket is a algorithm change to Baidu’s mobile search results ranking algorithm that is first released on 25 August 2014.

Total revenue of China mobile search market increased to RMB2.03 billion (USD330.6 million) with an increase of 24.2% from prior quarter. iiMedia Research believed that China mobile search apps are making efforts on integration of mobile search and offline events and improving their service, which make China mobile search market more active.

Among China mobile search first-option sources in H1 2014, mobile browser was the most popular one, preferred by 56.1% of all respondents surveyed.

There was still 6.8% of total China mobile users who didn’t think there was need for mobile search app.

Public transport is the most popular place that Chinese are searching on mobile (51.2%), followed by travelling/ on business trip (45.8%) and shopping in a mall (32.2%).

Among all types of China mobile search, character input is the most used way for searching, accounting for 82.7%, followed by voice search and image search.

The most popular category of search content is hot news in China in H1 2014, accounting for 32.8% of all categories. It is believed that mobile search service mainly satisfies users’ daily needs for lifestyle and entertainment involving shopping, traveling and so on.

China mobile search advertising only represented 13.1% of total search advertising click share in 2013, according to Marin Software’s latest annual report. Yet in Q2 2014, Baidu CEO Robin Li said, Baidu active users increased by 58 thousand in Q2 2014, and Baidu mobile platform usage grows fast. Baidu mobile revenue occupies more than 10% of its total revenue for the first time.

Also read: China Mobile Shopping market Exceeded $27B in Q2 2014

In this year’s Baidu World conference, Baidu shared some insights on its search trend and latest development related to artificial intelligence, and released a new mobile product called Baidu Zhida.

Baidu Search Update

Robin Li, Baidu co-founder and CEO, estimated searches by voice and images will exceed 50% of total searches in five years in Baidu World 2014 conference, an annual conference organized by Baidu.

He also shared the fact that Baidu mobile search volume exceeded PC volume on weekends and holidays in China; however, the mobile search quality is relatively low and the new user acquisition rate on mobile is less than 50% of that on PC. Mobile brought strong growth to Baidu according to Baidu Q2 finance results.

Baidu put in some hard work to improve mobile search quality recently with the launch of a new algorithm called Ice Bucket Update.

More people are searching for services on Baidu in China; last year, searches related to looking for services increased by 133%, said Robin.

Baidu Zhida: Mobile Solution for Enterprises

A new mobile solution for enterprises is released on Baidu World 2014, Baidu Zhida, which means “direct reach”. Users on Baidu Mobile can simply launch your brand’s  app developed with Baidu Light Apps by typing “@” along with your brand name once you activate your Baidu Zhida service.

According to Baidu, the conversion after using Baidu Zhida is higher on mobile; and, it provides user management and industry templates.

BaiduEye

BaiduEye focus on guesture recognition and image search. The user simply use the finger to circle an item or pick it up and BaiduEye will lock the item for recognition and analysis.

BaiduEye doesn’t have a screen. “Frame” part is used to identify and analyze while the headset on the right is used to give user feedback. In addition, Baidu also revealed a smart device for food safety Baidu Kuaiso.

Baidu Ice Bucket is a change to Baidu’s mobile search results ranking algorithm that is first released on 25 August 2014.

Baidu announced a new algorithm last week for Baidu mobile search results called Ice Bucket Algorithm, aiming to hit low quality sites and pages for mobile search.

Baidu Ice Bucket first update is launched today aiming for the following websites:

• Pages with forced pop-up windows and app download
• Pages that require user login before revealing content
• Pages with too many ads

Baidu’s official announcement emphasized on the type of sites that require users to download apps in order for access, which is bad for user experience; these type of sites will likely experience huge drop in search rankings on Baidu mobile search.

These days in China, some webmasters and entrepreneurs, developing mobile apps  and being good at SEO, optimize pages for Baidu mobile and force the users to download and install these apps before the proposed content is revealed. Obviously this is bad for user experience and sites using this tactic should update their sites with more readable content and adopt an indirect way to promote their apps.

According to China Mobile gateway traffic data recently leaked on Weibo, Shen Ma Search (m.sm.cn) was the second largest mobile search engine in June after Baidu:

SM.cn is a joint venture by Alibaba and UCWeb, who owns 70% of the company and is a provider of mobile internet software technology and services in China. It was launched this May, having merged Alibaba’s Yisou search.

China mobile search advertising only represented 13.1% of total search advertising click share, according to Marin Software’s latest annual report.

As the data only covers Google Mobile which has low market share in China’s search market, the absolute value of the findings are not so useful; the trend can still be referred to.

According to our experience, the mobile CPC in China is lower than PC in many circumstances and the tablet CPC is more costly.

Marin report provided 3 tips for mobile search advertisers:

1. Positions 1 and 2 are by far the most valuable positions for ads.
   Across all devices, click-through rates drop by 50% after position 2, from roughly 5% to 2.4%
2. Ensure that all parts of their conversion path are well-optimized for mobile devices
3. Marketers should look into tracking mobile ad formats like click-to-call and store-locator

Baidu recently released 2014 China Website Development Report. In this report, Baidu revealed some facts about mobile search.

Mobile search brought large revenue for Baidu. What did people search on mobile in 2013? Literal content was still in demand, for being convenient and costing little traffic. This might be a good news for webmasters of small and medium size websites. 

The demand for high quality reading source, life service, tool service and online inquiries remained strong. And the demand for life service, tool &  inquiries, health and education increased in 2013; however China websites were lack of high quality source in these field.

Most mobile websites were not spider-friendly. In other words, the search engine optimization of mobile websites was low. Non-standard page and no mobile redirect for Baidu mobile UA (user agent) were the main reasons why spider failed to grab mobile web pages. These two reasons accounted for over 70% of ineffective grab. Baidu suggested mobile websites should use separate domain names. Baidu also encouraged webmasters to use Html 5.

Here are 14 charts selected from iResearch annual report of China internet. Our selection may help you understand the development and status of China internet better.

Internet Economy

The scale of China internet economy hit 600.41 billion Yuan (USD 99 billion), maintaining a fast increase. Transaction of mobile segments such as mobile search and mobile payment skyrocketed in 2013.

Mobile Internet

The market size of China mobile internet kept a considerable growth rate. Mobile netizen will surpass PC netizen to make mobile the main internet terminal device.

E-Commerce

China mobile shopping market transaction reached 167.64 billion (USD 27.459 billion) in 2013 with fast growing penetration. Mobile Taobao, Jingdong and Tencent ECC continued to lead the mobile shopping market.

Payment

A new upsurge of third-party payment was coming owing to the in-depth cooperation with traditional finance. The GMV (gross merchandise volume) of mobile payment exploded in 2013. There was an intense competition for reverse-O2O (an offline to online model by reversing online to offline) market between companies.

Online Advertising

The market size was predicted to reach 110 billion Yuan(USD 18.14 billion). In the same period,the market size of search advertising had a YoY growth rate of 34.9%.

Online Game

The mobile client was predicted to take a 20.6% market share, surpassing browser game in 2014. Android accounted for 53.2% of mobile game market, followed by iOS with 44.4%.

Online Video

The online video market maintained rapid growth in 2013, and was expected to reach 36.6 billion Yuan in 2017.

Market Size: China Search Engine Revenue grew by 40.1% year on year in 2013. The market size of 2017 will surpass 90 billion yuan by forecast.

The China search engine revenue in 2013 reached 39.32 billion yuan, with a 40.1% year-on-year growth. Compared with last year, the growth slipped a little bit but remained above 40%. In the near future, China search engine market will witness a steady growth and to reach 96.33 billion yuan in 2017.

According to iResearch analysis, search engine market already entered to its maturity after years of development. And the growth will slow down little by little with the enlargement of the market size. The growing amount of active customers and the Average Revenue Per User provided solid foundation for the market. In addition to these, the commercialization of the mobile search engines and the growing revenue of 360 search engine gave impetus to this market as well.

Market Structure: key words advertising and contextual advertising brought the primary revenue. Search engine companies endeavored to foster new growth points.

According to the search engine market total revenue, keywords advertising revenue took up 74.1%, with a 2% slowdown comparing to 76.2% of last year. Contextual advertising and Navigation advertising revenue accounted for 13.7% and 4.5%, with a 1% slowdown both.

Other advertising revenue took up 7.5%, which was double of last year. Non-advertising revenue shared 0.3%. Among them, search engine revenue which included key words advertising and contextual advertising, took up 87.8% of the whole search engine market revenue.

iResearch pointed out that key words advertising and contextual advertising, being the core business and primary revenue of search engine companies, would gain stable growth in the future. In the meantime, to seek a higher rate of revenue growth, search engine companies were exploring new sources of growth.

The main source of huge increase in the other advertising revenue came from Baidu’s acquisitions of IQIYI and PPS, as well as the good performance of TV program Papa, Where to Go. Non-advertising revenue in the future would include game operation of search engine companies and the possibly-paid service of Baidu which will give a push to the market size enlargement.

Advertising Revenue: In 2013, China search engine advertising market reached 34.52 billion yuan.

In 2013, China search engine advertising revenue reached 34.52 billion yuan with a 34.9% year-on-year growth. The estimated 2014 search engine advertising market would sustain more than 30% growth and gain revenue of 84.3 billion yuan.

According to the analysis of iResearch, search engine advertising, as mature advertising models, can provide more exposure and better return on investment which were favored by advisers.

Future Prospect: Owing to the higher market concentration, mobile search engine would be the important growing point of this market.

Higher market concentration: In 2013, Tencent implemented capital injection to Sougou, followed by the Soso’s exit of the search engine market. According to iResearch analysis, search engine market would gain higher market concentration with Baidu, 360 search and Sogou to be main players. It would be difficult for the new players to enter this market and easy for the old players such as Google to be marginalized.

Mobile Search Engine to Be the Important Growing Point: Mobile search engine forged ahead at a fast speed. The growing number of users and advertisers, together with the growing amount of internet flows, internet flow value and advertising charge, promoted the revenue of mobile search engine.

Indicated by iResearch report, search traffic will continue to grow with the increasing number of mobile netizens and the development of netizens’ searching habit. At the same time, advertisers would gain better understanding of search engine advertising. Under the joint push of these two factors, mobile search engine advertising will developed rapidly and to an important growing point for search engine companies.

What did Chinese search for in 2013? As the dominant search engine in China, Baidu’s search data will no doubt shed some light on China’s culture, top events and user behaviors; and, based on top search terms in selected categories from Baidu, this post aims to provide you some insights.
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Top 10 Search Keywords on Baidu

The top 10 Chinese search keywords in 2013 were weather, taobao, Wu Dong Qian Kun, The Tang Door, Mang Huang Ji, Zhe Tian, Double Chromosphere, Baidu, Da Zhu Zai and qzone.

1. Weather

Weather ranked the number one in Chinese search keywords in 2013, it showed that Chinese netizens concerned more about weather and environment issues. In 2013, Chinese paid close attention to air condition, hazy weather, blizzard and even typhoon. When netizens searched “weather” in Baidu search engine especially in PC end, the search result page would list one-week weather forecast on the left, and life quality index on the right which gave suggestions for car washing, travelling and sports. Many netizens had been used to searching weather in Baidu everyday, therefore, weather came to the top on Chinese search keywords list in 2013.

2. Taobao

Taobao’s ranking in the second place was a reflection of online shopping rush in 2013. Double 11 shopping carnival helped Alibaba made billions, and it also helped “Taobao” search times increased. Taobao was launched by Alibaba Group in May 2013. According to Alexa, Taobao Marketplace became one of world top 20 most visited websites. Taobao now has about 500 million registered users, with 60 million unique visitors daily. In April 2013, Alibaba invested in Sina Weibo, and launched Weibo for Taobao in August.

3. Wu Dong Qian Kun

Wu Dong Qian Kun is the hottest Chinese online novel written by Li Hu, first published on Qidian.com which is a leading Chinese original literature website. The novel is a fantasy kung fu story happened in ancient China.

4. The Tang Door

The Tang Door is also a popular Chinese online novel written by Zhang Wei, and it was also published on Qidian.com. It is the same with Mang Huang Ji (5), Zhe Tian (6) and Da Zhu Zai (9), all are fantasy online novels.

7. Double Chromosphere

Double Chromosphere is a kind of Chinese lottery, it ranked on the top 10 keywords in 2013 which was a reflection of Chinese fortune dream. More or less, every Chinese dreamed of being rich.

8. Baidu

Baidu is the biggest search engine in China, was founded on January 18 2013 by Robin Li. In Q3 2013, Baidu search engine market share by volume accounted for 63.55%, ranking the first in China. Baidu acquired 91 Wireless with USD 1.9 billion on July 16, 2013. Baidu’s acquisition, the biggest in China internet industry for 19 years, showed its resolution in entering mobile search market. On October 28, 2013, Baidu launched its finance center just like Alibaba’s Yu’E Bao to enter into online finance management market.

10. Qzone

Qzone is a social networking website launched by Tencent in 2005. Qzone allows users to write blogs, share with friends, upload pictures, listen to music and post status. Qzone and Sina Weibo ranked on the top 2 of China social sharing websites in 2013, according to JiaThis, in October 2013, Qzone surpassed Sina Weibo to be the number one in China social sharing websites.

Top 10 Fastest Rising Events

1. Ya’an Earthquake

On April 20, 2013, at 8:02 Beijing time, the epicenter was situated in Lushan County of Ya’an in Sichuan province. The earthquake magnitude was 7.0. About 1.52 million people was affected by the earthquake. By April 24 at 14:30, the earthquake caused 196 casualties, 21 missing and 11,470 wounded. The disaster attracted wide attention nationwide, about 8,000 soldiers came to the rescue and many enterprises and Red Cross donated money and supplies. The government announced April 27 to be the public mourning day of the dead in Ya’an earthquake, entertainment was forbidden in Sichuan, at 8:02 on April 27, the siren lasted for 3 minutes.

2. Five Policies of Real Estate Regulation

Real estate price was the top concern of many Chinese, the price in tier-one cities was soaring crazily in recent years. Newlyweds from middle-income or low-income families could barely afford the down-payment of a house in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou. Even the price in tier-two and three cities were rising fast in the past few years. Chinese government had been trying to control real estate price for years, and on February 20 2013, Chinese former premier Wen chaired State Council executive meeting and the meeting announced five policies of real estate regulation. This was the fifth real estate regulation since the beginning in December 2009. In January 2010, State Council announced eleven policies of real estate regulation, 10 policies in April, and September 29 new policies. In January 2011, State Council announced new eight policies. The fifth regulation policies centered on house purchase quota and mortgage restriction, and curb speculative housing investment.

 3. H7N9 Virus

On March 31, 2013, Shanghai Department of Health announced that first H7N9 virus victim in China and World. In the next two months, 10 provinces and 39 cities of mainland China discovered H7N9 victims. By May 27 2013, there were 130 H7N9 victims and 37 deaths. By May 30, the contamination slowed down and was under control. H7N9, like other bird flu, was active in winter and died down in summer.

4. Shenzhou 10

Shenzhou 10 is one of Chinese Shenzhou spacecrafts, and it was the fifth manned spacecraft launched on June 11 2013. Its mission was to dock with Tiangong space station and fulfilled several experiments. Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang and a female astronaut Wang Yaping were the crew on Shenzhou 10. It returned to earth on June 26 2013, flying 15 days in the orbit.

5. Hazy Weather

China’s air condition worsened in 2013, especially serve in the northern part of China. According to China Meteorological Bureau, the total hazy days in 2013 hit a new record in 52 years. One of the severe hazy days appeared in January in Beijing, which lasted over 10 days. 20 million residents in Beijing could hardly breathe, toxic particles blocked sunlight. PM 2.5 in Beijing reached 900 mg/m3. In October 2013, the northeastern China suffered even more severe air pollution than Beijing. Harbin and other cities in northeast began heating by coal-burning, hazy weather emerged in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces with PM 2.5 over 1000 mg/m3. In the beginning of December 2013, hazy weather started in Shanghai and southern provinces which lasted more than a week. There were two main causes for hazy weather, one was because of air pollution in industrialized cities, and the other reason was that the climate condition was not conducive for pollution dispersion. Therefore, Chinese consumption on hazy weather related products soared in 2013.

6. Diaoyu Islands

China’s conflicts with Japan over Diaoyu Islands heated in recent years. Diaoyu Islands are a group of uninhabited islands controlled by Japan in East China Sea. In 1972, when USA evacuated from Ryukyu Islands, USA handed administrative jurisdiction over Diaoyu Islands together with Ryukyu Islands to Japan. But Chinese historical records said China owned Diaoyu Islands. Since 1970s, Chinese started China Federation of Defending Diaoyu Islands. Chinese government started surveillance on Diaoyu Islands on September 10, 2012.

7. Inheritance Tax

It was said that inheritance tax would be  drafted in the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee which was held on Nov 9 to Nov 12 in 2013. The news was spread out from Liu Huan, vice president of Tax department in Central University of Finance and Economics and counselor of State Council, which aroused controversy in the country. The rumor revealed inheritance tax threshold was 800,000 yuan (USD 130,609) which evoked public discontent, 70% of senior citizens said the threshold should be 10 million yuan (USD 1.63 million). The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee announcement refuted the rumor and indicated delaying inheritance tax levy.

8. Two-child Policy

China has been practicing one-child policy since 1983, in recent years, Chinese government started discussing two-child policy. Government announced on November 11 2013, that two-child policy allows family to have two children if one parent is the only child in his or her family. In 2013, Chinese working-age population would stop growing and then probably might face negative growth.

9. Central Patrol Group

Central Patrol Group was founded in 2003, and changed its name to Central Patrol Group in 2009. Now it has 12 patrol groups, inspecting local governments performance. Since the 18th Central Committee, the central party had started two rounds patrol, number of influential and powerful officials in high position sacked in corruption investigation.

10. Internet Finance

In 2013, Internet finance became a hot topic, P2P, third-party payment, money fund were the popular keywords. Alibaba CEO Jack Ma said “If banks don’t change, we will change banks”, and it shook Chinese finance industry in 2013. On June 5, Alipay launched Yu’E Bao with Tianhong Asset Management, and the fund size reached 100 billion yuan (USD 16.32 billion) merely after five months. Later, Baidu also launched its finance center which outperformed Yu’E Bao on the very first day. Many other internet enterprises planned to enter internet finance market, it was said that Sina would launch Weibo finance platform in December 2013. The prosperous of internet finance couldn’t stand without P2P lending. P2P lending grew crazily this year, about 500 P2P platforms opened in 2013. However, 64 P2P websites bankrupted by the end of November 29 in 2013. The lack of regulation in P2P lending boosted the fast growth, as well as the risk.

Top 10 Memes

1. Tuhao

Tuhao has been a hot word all over the media, it represents rich Chinese who love to show off their wealth on internet while claiming to be poor. Tuhao is referred over 56 million times on Sina Weibo, everybody wants to be friends with tuhao, but nobody really likes them. They have caused attention of many foreign media, BBC made a special program about Chinese tuhao. The popularity of tuhao began early in September, Sina Weibo started an acitivity “Let’s be friends with tuhao”. It’s similar to diaosi, both separate common people with rich class in China.

2. Time Travel

Time travel ranked second on the top 10 memes in 2013, it gained popularity from time travel themes novels and TV dramas. Time travel extended its meaning on internet, if you think out of the box without limits from your time and location and different from everyone else, then you are “time travelling”.

3. PM 2.5

PM2.5 means particles whose diameter is smaller than 2.5 micrometers, tend to penetrate into lungs and some may get to other organs. It could affect human health. PM2.5 is the main harmful particles in hazy weather, which was why it aroused wide concern in China in 2013.

4. Positive Energy

The popularity of positive energy originated from a book Positive Energy by Richard Wiseman, which described a human body as energy field. By stimulating inner potential, we might become a new and positive, more confident person. Positive energy means healthy, optimistic and positive force and emotions. At present, all the positive things done in China were labeled as positive energy. It became a symbol, connected with Chinese people’s emotions and expressing their desires.

5. Life is so hard that some lies are better not to be exposed.

It is a four words phrase in Chinese, originated from a popular song. Later, it got even more popular and many netizens used it to in comments. It is often used when someone said something true and harsh, other people probably commented that “Life is so hard that some lies are better not to be exposed”. Another explanation for this phrase would be “some couples finally get together that please don’t be so cruel to break them apart”.

6. I don’t know what you said, but it seems you are great.

This is another popular four words phrase in 2013, which is often used by rookies to express their admiration for experts. Or it could be used to mock or as a sarcasm when some amateurs gave their “professional opinions”.

7. Executive Distinguished VIP

Executive Distinguished VIP is an online meme in 2013, it is used to describe something of high taste, classy. Usually it would be used as sarcasm. It was originated from an online limericks, which mocked those who looked fashionable and classy but actually were vulgar and phony.

8. Too young too simple.

Too young too simple has been all the rage for years, it was the famous quotation from former China chairman Jiang Zemin in press conference with Hong Kong journalists in 2000. He criticized Hong Kong journalists as too young, too simple sometimes naive for asking stupid questions. He said something about these journalists knowing about western theories, but they were still too young. He had seen too much and these journalists still needed to improve their knowledge. He was angry then when a Hong Kong journalist misunderstood his opinion about Hong Kong chief executive’s second term election, then he said “You are naive, naive”.

9. The news is so exhilarating that everyone is celebrating and spreading it to the rest of the world.

This is another four words phrase emerged in 2013, it is often used in spreading bad news and everyone is gloating about it.

10. Tomboy

Tomboy is used to describe women who are more like men in behavior and personality, they might be rude, bold and forthright and independent. Tomboys are masculine and have more features that female shouldn’t have. Tomboys usually don’t like makeups, are easily to be friends with guys and hate girlish dresses. They tend to be careless and easygoing, like hanging out with male friends. But one of the distinctive characteristics of Chinese tomboys is that they all don’t have boyfriends.

Top 10 Culture Trending

1. The Voice of China

The Voice of China is based on a popular TV program The Voice of Holland, which was a reality television singing competition soon gained popularity around the world, the Voice UK, the Voice of Germany and the Voice of America all have licensed. The Voice of China broadcast first on July 13 2012 on Zhejiang Satellite TV, four Chinese famous singers became the coaches for guiding and commenting the singers’ performance. The Voice of China had the highest TV ratings in TV reality shows, about 4% in 2012, it was even higher than the famous Super Voice Girls broadcast by Hunan Satellite TV. The Voice of China season 2 in 2013 continued the good performance, with 5% TV ratings. The JDB Group won the exclusive title sponsor with 60 million yuan (USD 9.8 million) in 2012, but the price for 2013 exclusive title sponsor went up to 200 million yuan (USD 32.7 million), and the auction for 2014 exclusive title sponsor soared to 250 million (USD  40.9 million).

 2. Where are we going, daddy?

Where are we going daddy is a also a TV reality show introduced from South Korea MBC Television by Hunan Satellite TV in 2013. It was on air since October 11 2013 every Friday, five celebrity dads went out into the countryside with their children for 72 hours. These children got to spend some real quality time with their dads alone, finished tasks together. These dads had to learn to take care of their children without help from their moms, and they learned the difficulties of being a housewife, what’s more, they knew their kids better through the reality show. The show even aroused fatherhood among audience, making some people want to become a father. Where are we going daddy’s TV ratings soon rose to 5% in December 2013, growing extremely fast.

3. So young

So young is the first film directed by Chinese actress Zhao Wei, as graduation work of Beijing Film Academy. It hit the big screen on April 26 2013, and the box office amazingly achieved 720 million yuan (USD 117.7 million) which ranked the fourth in Chinese films in 2013. The film was adapted from the same novel written by Xin Yiwu, many fans of the novel had great expectations of the film. Another highlight of the film was the female lead reminded audience of the director, Zhao Wei. Both were fearless and care-free in films.

4. Crazy guess Figure

Crazy guess Figure is a Chinese online game developed by Hortor Soft, it’s a figure puzzle game which could increase players knowledge. It’s fun to play at the same time, and very suitable for people who have time to kill. About 60% of players were female, most of them were from Beijing, Guangdong and Jiangsu province. 50% were students, and the active playing time period was between 9 pm to 2 am. Crazy guess Figure took advantage of Wechat friend circle, allowing players to share their game results to Wechat. If their Wechat friends clicked the game results, they could continue playing the game on webpage. Crazy guess Figure’s players increased quickly since May 29, on June 7 it increased 300,000 new players and daily active players reached 500,000.

5. Baidu motu

Baidu motu is a mobile photoshop app, offering mobile photoshop, sharing and cloud album services. It had over 100 million users in 218 countries, and it won best app in App Store. It ranked in the top 5 mobile picture and video apps in 20 countries’ App Store.

6. Chinese dream

The concept of Chinese dream was first brought up by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the definition of Chinese dream is the prosperous and rejuvenation of Chinese nation. Xi also expressed his resolution that this Chinese dream will come true. In 2021, China will become a well-off society in an all-around way, and in 2049, China will achieve rejuvenation and be a prosperous nation. In resemblance to American dream, Chinese dream seems appealing to citizens and is a reflection of many Chinese wishes. The concept focused not only on national dimension, but also personal, historical, global and antithetical.

7. Rubber Duck

Rubber Duck was designed by Holland artist Florentijn Hofman, the first Rubber Duck was created in 2007. One of the largest Rubber Duck was 26*20*30 meters. Hofman traveled around the world with his artwork Rubber Duck since 2007, he had visited 18 cities in 11 countries by December 2013. In May 2013, Rubber Duck came to Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour for more a month then it went to Shanghai shortly for five hours on June 9 and 10 in 2013.

8. Evergrande AFC Champions League

Guangzhou Evergrande won AFC Champions League on November 9, 2013, defeated FC Seoul from South Korea to be the first China football club winner in AFC Champions League. Recently, FIFA selected 13 moments that defined 2013, Guangzhou Evergrande winning AFC Champions League was the only event chosen in Aisa. Top Italian coach Marcello Lippi helped Guangzhou Evergrande make the history and he also became the first coach to win AFC Champions League, UEFA Champions League and FIFA World Cup.

9. Aircraft carrier style

On November 25, 2012, Shenyang J-15 successfully took off and landed on the first Chinese aircraft carrier. The gesture of two technicians who were making crouching and pointing with two fingers to give take off permission signals to J-15. The gesture aroused interest among Chinese netizens, later, a lot of parodies pictures taken by netizens positioning themselves like the technicians could be found online. Most of these pictures were taken in bedroom, many pasted a paper with Chinese phrase take off on their back and mimicked the technicians.

10. Dama

Dama is a Chinese word that means middle-aged women. American media ridiculed Chinese middle-aged gold buyers who shook the world gold market, and Wall Street Journal even created a new word “Dama” to describe them. Chinese dama’s gold purchasing power created the biggest gold price upsurge in a single day in 2013. Dama purchased a large amount of gold when the price dropped from USD 1,550 per ounce to USD 1,321 from April 12 to 15 in 2013.

Top 10 Mobile Search Terms

Baidu’s top 10 mobile search terms list was based on 464 million mobile netizens’ searching behavior in 2013, weather, train ticket, lottery, etc were on the list. The list was a reflection of Chinese mobile netizens daily needs.

1. Weather

Weather not only ranked top one in 2013 search keywords, but also the number one in mobile search terms in 2013. See the introduction in Top 10 Search Keywords above.

2. Train Ticket

Train ticket was extremely difficult to purchase during holidays and festivals, especially in Spring Festival when millions of Chinese returned home. In recent two years, with the popularity of smartphone and the development of mobile browser and search engine, people could pay attention to train tickets and check information via mobile conveniently.

3. Lottery

Double Chromosphere ranked the 7th in top 10 search keywords in 2013, and lottery ranked the third in mobile search terms. Chinese becoming rich in one-night dream stimulated lots of people to purchase lotteries, and they also kept their eyes on it via mobile.

4. Gold Price

Chinese dama’s gold purchasing behavior had wide and influential effect in the society, many people paid attention to gold price in 2013. Therefore, gold price went up in the fourth place of top mobile search terms.

5. Constellation

Constellation ranked in top mobile search terms was hardly any news, because everybody seemed to talk about constellation and people searched for information about constellation anytime anywhere. Young Chinese would ask questions about constellation not only in new classmates meetings, but also in blind-date. They would search about date and basic information about constellation, also include analytic and lucky stone. Knowing about constellation helped them know each other better, what’s more, to know themselves better.

6. Translation

The flourish of study abroad market made translation one of the major services of these agencies, mobile device allows people to get translation tools and services more easily. Besides, more and more Chinese loved to travel abroad, therefore the need for translation on mobile grew quickly. So translation ranked the sixth on the top mobile search terms in 2013.

7. Oneiromancy

Oneiromancy’s ranking the seventh on the list in 2013, even before express delivery and time check, surprised everyone. Most people remembered dreams clearest in the morning when they got up, so the mobile search of oneiromancy happened mostly in the morning. Many Chinese had the habit of searching for oneiromancy on their mobile.

8. Express Delivery

Online shopping was extremely popular in China, with over 10,000 average daily transaction. Chinese netizens already got used to track express delivery through mobile device. Tmall Double 11, Double 12 promotion created millions of packages. Chinese online shoppers would prefer to track their packages on mobile.

9. Traffic Violation

There was a widespread Weibo about sharing traffic tickets online in November 2013, many netizens participated in and it called attention to transportation safety. Baidu launched a light app to check traffic violation recently, it attracted more than 1 million users merely four days after its launch. The number of traffic violation checking times hit 100,000. Mobile users had to install Mobile Baidu app, and they could find traffic violation checking light app in Baidu Light App store. Baidu Light App included many daily life service app, covering almost all Chinese mobile netizens daily needs.

10. Check Time

Another popular mobile search term was check time in 2013. It seems that Chinese like to check time table of airlines or trains on their mobile.

Top 10 Search Terms in Autos

1. Focus

The Ford Focus was one of the main compact cars in Ford European market. On December 24, 2013, the accumulated sales of Ford Focus in China reached 1.5 million. Ford Focus became the most popular car in 2013, ranking the first on top 10 autos list.

2. Tiguan

Tiguan was the first Volkswagen SUV made in China in 2010, since its launch, it won the hearts of many Chinese consumers and offered them more choices among SUVs.

3. Jetta

Jetta is manufactured by FAW-Volkswagen, which is a joint venture enterprise of First Automobile Works and Volkswagen. Jetta is famous for its high quality, it was the bestseller in Chinese market in 2006 among the same types of cars.

4. Bora

Bora is manufactured by First Automobile Works (FAW), Bora 1.4T was launched in 2010 which surprised Chinese consumers with its improved vehicle dynamic quality and comfort. Its price was very competitive, ranging from 128,800 to 147,800 yuan (USD 21,000 to 24,000).

5. Cruze

Cruze is a compact car produced by General Motors Company, it was launched in China by Shanghai GM in 2013. Cruze’s first debut in Paris unveiled its avant-garde design style, which drew lots of public attention.

6. Magotan

Magotan is a derivative from Passat B6, and was first launched by FAW in 2011. To satisfy the needs of comfort, FAW launched a new Magotan B7L in 2012.

7. Sagitar

Sagitar was launched by FAW in 2006, which was based on the fifth Jetta sold in North America by Volkswagen. Sagitar has first-class handling and could be compared with BMW 3.

8. Santana

Santana was manufactured by Volkswagen in California. Santana could be seen all over China in 20 years since its launch in 1985. In October 2012, Shanghai Volkswagen announced that they would stop producing old Santana. The new Santana was launched on December 16, 2012.

9. Passat

Passat was first launched in 1974 and made huge success in Europe. Passat produced in 1999 was extremely popular around the world. Its global sales reached 11.3 million by November 2013. Shanghai Volkswagen introduced Passat B5 in 2000, and Passat B6 in 2005. In 2007, Passat B6 manufactured by FAW-Volkswagen was called Magotan.

10. Lavida

Lavida was launched by Shanghai Volkswagen in June 2008. Lavida kept the good quality of Germany car, and it also combined with Chinese characteristics to meet Chinese consumers’ taste.

Top 10 Private Education Services

1. New Oriental School

New Oriental (Beijing New Oriental Education & Technology Group), is headquartered in Beijing and listed in New York Stock Exchange in 2006. It is the largest comprehensive education group in China. New Oriental was founded under the tendency that China gradually strode toward globalization and more Chinese educated young people dreamt to go abroad. It offered mainly English courses, such as TOEFL, SAT, GRE, GMAT, LAST, IELTS, New Concept English and CET-4, CET-6, etc. Besides, they also covered primary school courses, middle school and high school courses.

2. 51zxw

www.51zxw.net is a video teaching website founded by the teachers from computer training schools and vocational colleges. All the videos are recorded originally by the experienced teachers in various fields. The website aims at offering professional education to more students with the grand vision of making the best teaching videos and improving the computer skill of the whole nation. With the help of this website, people can learn by themselves without the restriction of time and space.

3. offcn

www.offcn.com was founded in 1999, and exploring the field of training program for National Civil Service Examination in 2001. Offcn grows from a startup information technology and education company to a comprehensive group in education industry. They provide services including the training program for civil servants, public institution staff, village cadres and offer products such as books, audiovisual material, website that combines editing, publishing and distribution. Since civil servant or public institution jobs started representing good payment, decent social status and permanent social welfare, more and more Chinese paid attention to this kind of exams.

4. chinaacc

www.chinaacc.com is one of the flagship brands of China Distance Education Holdings Ltd. Chinaacc is a large and authoritative institution that offers accountant distant education in China. Nowadays it becomes an online training base for the staff in “Big Four” International accounting companies and it is also working with UNESCO on some pilot projects about technical and vocational education training.

5. Huatu

www.huatu.com has around 100 branches nationwide. It offers training for the examinations of central and local civil servant, public institution and “three support public policies and one assistance” program (a program that encourages university graduate go to work for the poor countryside), village cadres and police.

6. Kekenet

www.kekenet.com , an online English learning website, was founded in 2006. Through years of hard work, Kekenet has become one of the national favorite free English learning websites.

7. APTECH

APTECH is an IT career and education company relying on Peking University education resource and adopting the cooperation with universities. It focuses on the training programs for skilled IT personnel in shortage.

8. Hujiang

wwww.hujiang.com is a foreign language Learning website, providing foreign language learning portal site, E-commerce service, online SNS learning community and learning software.

9. Etiantian

www.etiantian.com is a distant learning educational institution founded by Beijing NO.4 School. It takes advantage of the advanced network information technology to provide an open learning program and share the education resource of NO.4 school to all primary and middle schools students.

10. Xueda

www.xueda.com founded in 2001, is headquartered in Beijing. It has opened 273 personalized learning centers in 62 cities with 15,000 employees. It is a large personalized educational chain institute. Using the method of personalized tutoring, its main goal is to help students from primary to high school with their study and to arouse their interests.

Top 10 Search Terms in Cosmetics

Baidu’s Zeitgeist of 2013 listed top 10 search terms in cosmetics, which gave us an understanding of Chinese netizens favorite cosmetics brands in 2013.

1. Chanel

2. Watsons

3. Estee Lauder

4. Mary Kay

5. L’Oreal

6. Lancome

7. Dior

8. Sephora

9. Clinique

10. Chando

Top 10 Search Terms in 3C

Samsung Galaxy S4 ranked the first on Baidu’s top 10 search terms in 3C products in 2013, what’s astonishing was that Xiaomi 3 surpassed iPhone 5S to be the second on top 10 IT devices.

1. Samsung Galaxy SIV

2. Xiaomi 3

3. iPhone 5S

4. Meizu MX2

5. HTCM7

6. Xiaomi Hongmi

7. Apple MacBook Pro

8. Apple Mac Air

9. Lenovo Y470

10. Dell 14R

Top 10 Tourist Destinations

In 2013, the top search terms of tourist destinations was Hong Kong. Most Chinese would search about tourism in Hong Kong, and the second was Xiamen. Except for Dubai, Maldives and Singapore, other tourist destinations were all located in China.

1. Hong Kong

2. Xiamen

3. Qingdao

4. Jiuzhaigou

5. Dubai

6. Lijiang

7. Wuzhen

8. Maldives

9. Singapore

10. Mount Tai

Top 10 Topics

1. Green Tea Bitch

Green Tea Bitch is a new term that describes a kind of young ladies with innocent appearance but cunning minds. In front of public, they seem to be very weak and sentimental but actually they have audacious ambition and craftiness. They will betray their body to gain the money or power. To some degree, the popularity of this term reflects the worse moral degradation.

2. Diao Si

Diao Si, or Diors Man is a self-mocking word which means a group of people who have obscure and mediocre life with confused future and emotional void but also expect to be recognized by the society. Due to the lack of goals, they live the life without passion. Under the surge of prevailing Chinese internet culture, it is created by a Baidu Tieba netizen who used this word frequently in an article. Owing to numerous members in Baidu Tieba, this word became famous from the Tieba to the nationwide internet world.

3. Shu Nv

Shu Nv, sophisticated lady or cougar is a word traveled from Japan. It refers to the mature woman from 30 to 50. But not all the mature women are Shu Nv, they should be sophisticated, graceful, confident and considerate with rich life experience.

4. Che Zhen

Che Zhen, literally means car vibrating which is a metaphor describing  the lovers who flirt or have sex in the car. It is one of the modern ways to have sex. Some study shows the first romantic place to have sex is the seaside and the car follows the second.

5. Tuhao

See above in Top 10 Search Keywords.

6. Time Travel

See above in Top 10 Memes.

7. Fei Zhu Liu

Fei Zhu Liu, resembling beatnik in U.S. in the 50s, is a fashion trend accepted among the young people. This young group wants to show their uniqueness by wearing unusual clothes and strange hair styles. Most of the Fei Zhu Liu are from the generation of 90s. Most people think they are just idiots.

8. Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment network and digital currency based on an open source protocol, which makes use of a public transaction log. Bitcoin was introduced in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin’s price has been surging crazily in the recent, it hit an apex of USD 1,240 on December 5 2013. Early in January this year, Bitcoin’s price was USD 13. Chinese buyers played an important role in the surging of Bitcoin in 2013.

9. PM2.5

See above in Top 10 Memes.

10. Loli

Loli is the short name of Lolita. Lolita is the name of the 14 years old girl who is the main character in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel “Lolita.” And when this word was brought in to Japan, it referred to the young and cute girls or the related culture trend, such as Lolita Fashion.

According to iResearch, the number of total China mobile search users reached 390 million in Q2 2013. China mobile search market is not mature yet. Mobile search technology needs improvement to offer better user experience.

The total mobile search revenue in Q2 reached 1.19 billion yuan (USD 194 million), with a 15.7% QoQ increase.

In China mobile search usage rate in Q2 2013 was 76.5%.

In terms of popular mobile search content categories, web page, news and fictions were the top three, with 58.8%, 54.1% and 51.5% rate respectively. Compared to PC, mobile search content were more likely to contain entertainment and local services.

In Q2 2013, 77.6% users average daily mobile search were more than two times. And 38% users searched 2-5 times a day.

37.8% Chinese used voice search in Q2 2013, and only 19.4% used image search. Although voice search and image search were launched for quite some time, they were not widely used. Especially for image search, it was most used in clothing and book search.

Besides, 66.4% users said they noticed mobile search ads, but only 3.1% clicked on the ads in Q2 2013.

According to Baidu Mobile Internet Report in Q2 2013, Android daily active users grew steadily though QoQ increase rate dropped down, and it might hit 300 million by the end of 2013. In Q2, the number of Android increased new users was about 20 million, with a 10% QoQ increase.

In Q2 2013, social and Instant Messenger apps still had the most downloads, with a 103% increase compared to Q4 2012. Other apps with high download times were video, game, music  and safety guard. Wechat ranked first on the download times list, followed by QVOD and Temple Run. Momo had the largest download growth rate, iQiyi and Popstar ranked the second and third.

Users spent most time on reader, social and IM and video apps, while search and LBS had the fastest growth rate.

Frequency of browser dropped a little, other apps frequency remained and grew slightly.

Reader was still the most popular search keyword, but it dropped a little in Q2 2013. Life service, tool service, online shopping, healthcare, education and game were the top search keywords with an obvious growth in Q2 2013.

55% big PC websites had transferred their website resources to mobile devices. Only 41% middle websites mobilized their resources.

Big websites had 14% mobile alone resources, and middle websites had 8% mobile alone resources.

LBS, search tools and education had relative low mobilization rate.

Baidu acquired 91 Wireless with USD 1.9 billion, and Qihoo 360’s Leidian search which targets mobile users launched on July 18, merely two days after Baidu’s new acquisition. Besides, Wandoujia (known as SnapPea overseas) and AppChina also laid emphasis on app search.

 Chinese App Search is Maturing

Baidu CEO Robin Li said on July 25, Baidu’s main strategies were mobile search, mobile app distribution, LBS ( Location Based Service ) and mobile video. Baidu’s acquisition of 91 Wireless, the biggest in China internet industry for 19 years, showed its resolution in entering mobile search market.

Baidu mobile search hasn’t found a good business model for a long time. Because mobile screen size is limited, mobile advertising revenue is too small to sustain. Although Baidu occupied the biggest market share on mobile search, the output/input was quite small. Now, a good business model is presented to Baidu, which is to use mobile search to distribute apps.

However, Qihoo 360’s Leidian search tries to compete with Baidu. Leidian Search is a combination of search and app store, and it allows users to download from PC to install on mobile. It offers users a platform to search for apps,games, ebooks, music, wallpaper and ringtones. The resource comes from 360 mobile app store, Wandoujia and an online music website, duomi.

Wandoujia and AppChina both intend on developing mobile app search. The app search market is maturing and competition would get more and more intense.

Why App Search Comes Late

Mobile App Store has developed for years, why does internet giants begin app search until now?

“Search always comes later than other business models, ” said by Sougou CEO Wang Xiaochuan, “If other business models are not mature and cannot make money, neither will search.” This explains why internet giants didn’t start app search in the past few years.

Mobile app search report released by Baidu in March showed the number of apps was about 500 thousand, close to the number of websites in 2004. As for mobile search, it is matured in comparison with web search. It also found out mobile app YoY growth rate was 465% in 2013, mobile search needs was growing. However, companies which had mastered mobile search techniques were rare, and lack of qualified technicians also limited its development.

In conclusion, mobile app search market is promising.

App Store Value is Decreasing

In contrast to app search promising future, app store value is decreasing. Lots of app stores emerged since Apple Store became a hit in China.

First, although the number of apps is growing, spammy apps also increase fast. Two thirds of total Apple Store apps are spam, as much as 579 thousand.

Second, most users never use an app after download it. Accordint to a report from Baidu, average “Native App” number increased 5, but average daily app using number decreased 0.9 in Q1 2013. The time spent on frequently used apps occupied 85% in Q1 2013.

App store value’s decrease doesn’t mean users needs are statisfied. The fact is, users always cannot find the app they want in the store. App search is yet to be developed.

China search engine Marketreached 9.28 billion yuan(1.5 billion USD) in Q2 2013, with a QoQ growth of 25.1% and a year-on-year growth of 35.3%, according to statistics released by iResearch.

China search engine market growth in Q2 was driven by three factors. First, due to seasonal factor, after the Chinese Spring Festival, search traffic was growing. Second, the number of search advertisers and ARPU  increased. Third, Qihoo’s 360 search quickly commercialized. However, the sluggish macroeconomics, saturated traffic in desktops, and mobile search revenue realization was troubling the search engine market.

Baidu dominated market with 81.4% share in Q2, followed by Google China with 13.1%. Sogou was 3.3%, and Soso 1.3%. 360 only occupied 0.8% in market share by revenue in Q2.

The number of China mobile netizen in 2008 was only a little over 73 million, taking up only 28.9% of the total netizens in China. However, it has grown at a surprising speed, reaching 419.64 million in December, 2012; that is over three quarters of the total China Internet users. It’s estimated that it will soon reach 450 million.

The number of Chinese mobile netizen increases at a stable growth rate. It has grown by 10 million in the first quarter this year from the second quarter of 2012.

Mobile phone has already become a necessity of life. With the popularity of 3G network and wifi, more and more people use mobile phones to surf the internet. 57.3% use phones to surf Internet more than twice a day.

There are a great number of applications with various functions. The chart above shows that instant messaging is the most frequently used app with 82% penetration rate, followed by mobile search with that of 69.4%. It is observed that mobile search is an essential function of mobile phones.

Well, on what situation will mobile phone owners the search function of their phones? According to the data, Chinese users will use mobile search on many situations, among which looking up new items and things comes first. And when they have no computer in hand, they will choose to use mobile phones to search.

About 62% of people access mobile Internet via search engine, which owns the highest percentage among all the channels.

When it comes to the degree of satisfaction with mobile search engines, Baidu ranks on top with the approval rate of 78.1%, followed by Yicha, EASOU and Soso.

Baidu is also leading the search race on mobile, followed by Soso and Easou.

If you are observing an increase in mobile traffic with high bounce rate, you probably should consider designing a mobile site (if your site is not based on responsive design). If you don’t have a budget for that, you can use this tool from Baidu called Baidu Site App.

According to Tencent News, Baidu Site App Platform is the 1^st online web app builder in China, officially launched on Sep 3. It can provide website developers with integrated services such as webapp delivery, net flow and user importing.

There had been 10,041 registered users, 8,919 submitted portals and 843 of them were rated as good three weeks since its launch.

The five main features of Baidu Site App are:

• Provides multiple sets of templates
• Auto-sync of content
• Helps mobile search ranking
• Supports Baidu Analytic
• Free for ever

Users can register and log in on Baidu Site App Platform. Enter the URL of selected websites, choose Web App templates, and modify specific functions. After deploying domain name, users should submit for official approvement. Once passed, the web app will be online on the mobile internet.

For developers, the advantage of Site App is gradually appearing. As an online builder of mobile web app, Site App can easily turn PC portals into mobile web app. Meanwhile, with the help of Baidu Analytic, intelligent operation can be easily realized. Also, there will be more inputs of net flow and users from Baidu mobile search engine and other means. For example, websites, which are turned into Web App, will have better expression on mobile. This will help the website get higher ranking on results page.

As for users, the transformation of Site App will help them save time and resources. Users have to search, download and install Native app before really using it, which is quite inconvenient. Not to mention how much memory capacity it will occupy. But if native app transforms into web app via Site App Platform, users can get access to a variety of apps without downloading.

We will not deny it is native app that facilitates the explosion of mobile internet but it has its  inevitable limitation. In contrast, web app will not be limited by relative hardware and software vendors while maximize the net profit of developers. We can easily anticipate its leading role in the near future.