Since Google moved to Hong Kong, Baidu has long been the Chinese mainland number one search engine on the Internet. Although local search service providers such as Sogou, Haosou (formerly 360 Search), and Shenma compete with Baidu, they cannot completely shake Baidu's dominant position in the search field, especially in the mobile search field such as mobile phones and tablets.
Perhaps, some people once thought that after the absence of a strong competitor Google, Baidu can not only rely on the Chinese mainland Internet search market to expand its own strength more easily, but also have more capital to expand its territory in the overseas search market, and it is not impossible to earn hundreds of billions of dollars a year (refer to Google).
Unexpectedly, according to data provided by StatCounter, a website traffic analysis tool, Baidu's share in the Chinese mainland search market is losing rapidly, and it has not been seen in the past five years - whether it is the desktop search market (desktop + laptop) or mobile search market (mobile + tablet), Baidu's search share is losing rapidly.
According to StatCounter, Baidu's share of the Chinese mainland desktop search market has continued to decline since 2022, while Microsoft's Bing share is steadily rising. By April 2023, Microsoft Bing's share hit a record high again, reaching 37.4%, replacing Baidu as China's largest desktop search engine; Baidu's share dropped to 27.01%, a gap of about 10 percentage points compared to Microsoft Bing; The third to sixth search engines are Sogou, Yandex, Haosou, and Google, with market shares of 16.36%, 7.45%, 6.25%, and 5.2% respectively.
January 2020 ~ April 2023, Chinese mainland desktop search engine market share
In fact, if you push the clock a little further, you can see that from the middle of 2021, Microsoft's share of the Chinese mainland desktop search market has entered an unprecedented period of growth. The likely reason is that Microsoft Bing will minimize the number and distraction of ads on the search results display page, and only display the information that is most relevant to the user's search intent. And Bing reviews search results for quality and trustworthiness to filter out content that is false, misleading, vulgar, or harmful. Enable users to find the information they want quickly, easily, and securely, rather than leaving them bogged down in information.
For example, search for this simple question in Baidu and Bing: What graphics card do gaming notebooks use? In the first page of Baidu's search results, commercial advertisements occupy a considerable space, and the first five or six pieces of information are advertisements, so that users cannot watch them at all. The first page of search results given by Bing is almost all information worth clicking and browsing. Moreover, the content posted by many netizens on Zhihu must be much more reliable than the answers given by netizens on Baidu's "Ask a Question".
Baidu search results homepage
Bing search results home page
In addition, StatCounter's data also shows that in the Chinese mainland mobile search market, Baidu search's market share has entered an almost irreversible decline since mid-2022. By April 2023, Baidu's share dropped to 48.7%, and Yandex's share soared to 32.24%; The third to sixth search engines are Google, Bing, Sogou and Shenma, with market shares of 6.09%, 4.91%, 3.08%, and 2.74% respectively.
January 2020 ~ April 2023, Chinese mainland mobile mobile search engine market share
Yandex is a Russian internet company that offers a variety of services, including search engines, maps, translation, email, music, videos, and more. Yandex has a high market share and user loyalty in Russia and some other countries or regions. As for Yandex's share of the Chinese mainland mobile search market in the last two to three months, it is indeed puzzling why it has grown rapidly from less than 5% to more than 30%. After all, for most mobile phone users Chinese mainland, it is not so easy to search for information with Yandex on their phones.
Russian Yandex search engine homepage
Moreover, in the Chinese mainland tablet search market, StatCounter's data shows that Baidu's share has also declined significantly, Microsoft's Bing's share has maintained steady growth, and Yandex's share has also accelerated in the past two or three months. By April 2023, Baidu's share of search fell again to 47.63%, and Bing's share rose to 22.91%; The third to sixth places are Yandex, Google, Sogou, and the search service Ecosia from Germany, with market shares of 19.48%, 5.87%, 2.22% and 0.73% respectively.
From January 2020 ~ April 2023, Chinese mainland the market share of tablet mobile search engine
In Chinese mainland, Baidu has its own multiple content channels, including Baidu Encyclopedia, Baidu Know, Baidu Wenku, Baidu Tieba and Baidu Experience, as well as content products such as Baijia and Haoyan Videos - for example, Baidu information channels often have a lot of content from Baijia number creators, and Baidu video channels also have a considerable part of content from Baijia number (good-looking videos). In contrast, the information provided by Microsoft Bing Search basically comes from third-party websites (platforms), such as Bilibili, Tencent Video, Sohu Video, CCTV, Oriental Fortune, Zhihu, and so on. As a result, Microsoft Bing has become the number one in the Chinese mainland desktop search market, and its share of searches on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones has also increased. Therefore, it is inevitable to ask the question: is Baidu search too bad, or is Bing search too good?
The AI dialogue based on Wen Xin's words joined Baidu Search and opened the closed beta, similar to Microsoft's Bing Bing approach.
In addition to search engines such as Baidu, Bing, and Sogou, domestic users can of course search for the information they want on mainstream platforms such as Bilibili, Zhihu, Douyin, WeChat, Toutiao, Taobao, JD.com, and Meituan, which will take away a part of the traffic that originally belonged to Baidu search.