Chinese Online Marketing
Search Engines and their Marketshare in China
Traditionally we westerners focus our SEO view on desktop search using PC and laptop rather than mobile search. The internet usage in China is somewhat different. Even silver surfers are using their smartphones to access the internet. However, you still deserve your look at the desktop search engine market shares.
Desktop Search Engines in China
Google was losing market share to Baidu already before they decided to back out of China. Not wanting to display filtered search results due to Chinese governments censorship rules, they abandoned the Chinese search market leaving it all to Baidu. Although there are other search engines which have some millions of users, the majority of desktop users are Baidu users.
Mobile Search Engines in China
The mobile search market is somewhat more interesting. Recently a new player could gain an interesting share of the mobile market: Shenma.
Shenam is different to Baidu not accessible through a webbrowser. It only runs in its own app. Shenma is different in another way as well - it is not an web only search but an app search - helping to find interesting apps for your smartphone - as well. This is one of the success bringing aspects because there is no Google playstore in the Chinese market. Smartphone brands instead preinstall their own appstores, which are not always the best equipped ones.
Shenma offers search for smartphone apps and classical internet research functionality at the same time.