The Chinese online marketplace has quickly grown into a place that, to Western eyes, really is a different world. Here’s our quick lowdown on China’s new Internet landscape.

Market Overview

The Chinese search engine market, now estimated to be worth over $1.5 billion, continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. From 2006 to 2010, it is expected to see a compound annual growth in excess of 30%. The potential for this growth lies in percentage of China’s population currently using the Internet – just over 10% compared to the 68% of people using the Internet in the United States. The Chinese Internet market is still relatively young, and as the rest of the nation starts to get online, the size of its search market is set to rocket. Contrary to popular belief, Chinese Internet users aren’t just searching for MP3s and playing online games. Over the next five years, the number of businesses launching their advertisements through Chinese search en gines is predicted to increase at a rate of 17% annually. Google is the search engine of choice for most of the planet, the undisputed number one and by far the most important place to rank if you want to maximise your website traffic. In China the situation is a little different. Here, homegrown favourite Baidu reigns supreme, with Google a distant second. Baidu’s dominance in China is equivalent to that which Google enjoys in the West, with a market share of around 65%. In the wake of Baidu’s success, Google (20%) has made limited impact and other search providers (15%) including Yahoo, Sohu and Sogou make up the rest of the market.

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