New Highs and Lows for Baidu, Google, in China Search Engine Market [INFOGRAPHIC]

Google.com.hk seems to be going down like a lead balloon in mainland China, with Google reaching its lowest ever ebb in the search-engine market in China. In Q2 2011, Google dipped to just under 20 percent in its search share here, while Baidu soared for the first time to just past the three-quarter mark, at 75.81 percent (see table and graph below).

The unedifying news means that Google has lost nigh on half its market share since Q1 2009. A noticeable dip can be seen in mid 2010, when the Google/Gmail hack controversy started to be reflected in netizens usage of the search engine, as Google.com.hk did not prove convincing. Frequent government interference – via the Great Firewall – certainly won’t have helped. With frequent connection drops occurring when browsing Google’s HK site from the mainland, it can appear to be faulty to users who are not aware of the periodic web-filtering and DNS blocking.

Baidu still looks like it has room to grow, especially in terms of mobile search. Indeed, Baidu seems to know this and has been pushing forward with its m.baidu.com site, adding location-aware features and even an Android app catalog to it in recent months.

Don’t you love me anymore?

Recent Q2 2011 results have been bad news for Nokia in China, and it’s not looking too good for Google either. But, the search market share stats do not cover ad revenue, so they’re in no way an indication of how Google China operations are running. Indeed, Google has actually been investing in and nurturing its talents in China, and started the year by recruiting a new director of product management in the form of Elliott Ng, based in Beijing.

But increasingly, the duopoly is edging towards a monopoly. Not even China’s giant Tencent is making a dent with its Soso.com search engine.

Here’s our graph and table showing the current Baidu/Google imbalance. Then hit the source link below for Baidu’s Q2 2011 financial results as well:

[Source: iMeigu.com]