During Q3 2007, Baidu's traffic market share remained stable compared with Q2. According to traffic analytics firms CNZZ and MAFR, Baidu (BIDU) still had four times Google's traffic in China.
1. CNZZ Data
CNZZ is the leading provider of website traffic tracking service in China. It recently published a report on Chinese search engines, based on its large web traffic database. The report showed that during August 2007, 71.2% of the traffic referred to Chinese websites were referred by Baidu. This means: for every 100 visits to Chinese websites through a search engine, Baidu was the "middleman" in 71 visits, connecting Internet users to their destination wesites. In other words, about 71% of Chinese Internet users find their destination sites through Baidu. In contrast, only 18.5% of the visits were referred by Google. In our view, this metric reflects a search engine's popularity among Internet users, so it is a very good represenation of traffic market share. According to the CNZZ data, Baidu has maintained its traffic dominance in Q3 2007, leading Google by a 4-to-1 ratio. Below is the detailed data from CNZZ:
Traffic Referrals by Chinese Search Engines (August 2007)
| Search Engine | Market Share |
| Baidu | 71.18% |
| 18.52% | |
| Yahoo | 3.59% |
| Tencent/Soso | 3.35% |
| Sohu/Sogou | 1.20% |
| Other | 2.16% |
Source: CNZZ
2. MAFR Data
MAFR is a competitor of CNZZ, providing websites with traffic tracking services. According to website referral data collected by MAFR, Baidu's traffic market share increased 0.8 percentage points to 72.7% in Q3 from 71.9% in Q2. Google's market share increased 0.7 percentage points to 17.2% in Q3 from 16.5% in Q2. Tencent also gained market share in Q3, while other search engines, including Yahoo, lost market share to Baidu, Google, and Tencent. Similar to CNZZ's result, MAFR's data show that Baidu's traffic is leading Google by a 4-to-1 ratio.
Traffic Referrals by Chinese Search Engines (Q2 and Q3 2007)
| Search Engine | Baidu | Tencent | Yahoo | Other | Total | |
| September | 72.3% | 17.6% | 4.3% | 3.1% | 2.7% | 100.0% |
| August | 73.0% | 17.0% | 3.9% | 3.2% | 2.9% | 100.0% |
| July | 72.7% | 17.0% | 4.1% | 3.2% | 3.1% | 100.0% |
| Q3 Average | 72.7% | 17.2% | 4.1% | 3.2% | 2.9% | 100.0% |
| June | 72.4% | 16.3% | 4.1% | 3.3% | 3.8% | 100.0% |
| May | 71.7% | 16.7% | 3.4% | 4.1% | 4.1% | 100.0% |
| April | 71.4% | 16.6% | 3.6% | 4.4% | 4.0% | 100.0% |
| Q2 Average | 71.9% | 16.5% | 3.7% | 3.9% | 4.0% | 100.0% |
| Q3-Q2 | 0.8% | 0.7% | 0.4% | -0.7% | -1.1% | 0.0% |
Source: MAFR
Other reports in our Baidu 3Q07 Preview Series:
(2): Search Queries Increased 4% vs. Q2
(3): Baidu Expanded User Market Share to ~70%
(4): Baidu Has 2x Google China's Advertisers
(5): Historical Trading Pattern Reveals Key Metrics to Watch
(6): Baidu Q3 Revenue Estimated to Be $66.7M by Analysys International
Related: Latest Research on Baidu; Compare 19 China Internet Stocks
