emarketer2Google announced last year that mobile search surpassed desktop search and this trend is going strong with Baidu and other Chinese search engines, too.

emarketer1According to eMarketer.com, China’s audience of mobile search users continues to grow at a rapid pace. Since eMarketer’s look at Chinese mobile search behavior last year, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) reports the country has added nearly 50 million new mobile search users, bringing the total audience to more than 477 million individuals.

Now the big question the research provider wanted to answer is what kinds of habits are helping drive its popularity?

When it comes to the types of queries made by China’s mobile search users, general-interest search engines like Baidu remain the most popular, although queries related to eCommerce and video sites were also increasingly popular uses.

According to CNNIC’s research, more than 90% of mobile search engine users used a general mobile search site like Baidu, while more than 83% used mobile search for ecommerce, and another 78% conducted searches on video sites.

Among the situations and locations where mobile search engine users in China were most likely to use a mobile search, downloading entertainment (70.7%), during work and studies (68.6%), commuting (67%) and shopping (65.7%) topped the list of responses in CNNIC’s study.

As more users in China conduct their searches via mobile means, it also appears that the vast majority of consumers rely on mobile search apps. Back in June 2015, iiMedia Research estimated that there were nearly 550 million mobile search app users in China.

Source: eMarketer.com