Google and Yahoo! Sites Lead the Region in Search Volume while China’s Leading Search Property Baidu.com Ranks Third
SINGAPORE, June 24, 2008 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its ranking of the top search properties in the Asia-Pacific region based on data from its Comscore qSearch 2.0 service, revealing that Google Sites led the region with 39.1 percent of all searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites (24 percent) and Baidu.com (16.7 percent). Comscore will provide a more comprehensive overview of Internet usage in the Asia-Pacific region during a free, live webinar entitled, “The State of the Global Internet – with a Focus on Asia” on Wednesday, July 2 at 10:00 a.m. SGT (GMT +08:00) (details below).
“Because Google and Yahoo! have a strong presence in many Asia-Pacific countries, they account for the majority of searches conducted in the overall region,” said Jack Flanagan, Comscore executive vice president. “However, there are several strong, local country search engines that also play a significant role in the region. Most notably, the dominant search engine in China, Baidu.com, accounts for one out of every six searches in Asia-Pacific notwithstanding the fact that its users are primarily from China.”
Five of the Top Ten Search Properties are Region-based Engines
Although Google Sites and Yahoo! Sites captured the majority of the search share in the region, five of the top ten search properties are local country entities, including China’s Baidu.com (16.7 percent) and Korea’s NHN Corporation (5.3 percent), which owns search engine Naver.com. Chinese properties Alibaba.com Corporation, Tencent Inc., and Sohu.com Inc., which host Internet-search functionality although they are not strictly search engines, rounded out the list of key local players.
Top 10 Asia-Pacific Search Properties April 2008 Total Asia-Pacific Internet Audience*, Age 15+ - Home & Work LocationsSource: Comscore qSearch
Top 10 Properties
Searches (MM)
Share of Searches
Total Internet
22,363
100.0
Google Sites
8,737
39.1
Yahoo! Sites
5,366
24.0
Baidu.com Inc.
3,725
16.7
NHN Corporation
1,178
5.3
Alibaba.com Corporation
488
2.2
Microsoft Sites
401
1.8
Lycos Sites
388
1.7
TENCENT Inc.
307
1.4
FRIENDSTER.COM
273
1.2
Sohu.com Inc
178
0.8
*Excludes searches from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
China Accounted for the Most Searches among Asia-Pacific Countries
More than 82 million Chinese Internet users conducted 6.2 billion total searches in April, an average of 75 searches per searcher. Interestingly, Japan’s 60 million Internet searchers conducted nearly the same number of searches (6.1 billion) as the 82 million Chinese searchers, a result of the heavier search volume per person in Japan (102.6 searches per searcher). Korea (104 searches per searcher) and Singapore (101 searches per searcher) also exhibited notably heavy search volume per person.
Asia-Pacific Search Overview – Country by Country Breakdown* April 2008Total Asia-Pacific Internet Audience*, Age 15+ - Home & Work LocationsSource: Comscore qSearch
Country
Unique Searchers (000)
Searches Per Searcher
China
82,814
6,233
75.3
Japan
60,050
6,160
102.6
India
21,817
1,209
55.4
Korea
20,660
2,139
103.5
Taiwan
9,880
698
70.7
Australia
8,707
851
97.7
Malaysia
7,082
385
54.3
Hong Kong
2,910
256
88.1
Singapore
1,689
170
100.9
New Zealand
1,644
146
88.5
Free Webcast to Highlight Regional Internet TrendsComscore and the Asia Digital Marketing Association are hosting a free, English-language webinar entitled, “The State of the Global Internet – with a Focus on Asia” on Wednesday, July 2 at 10:00 a.m. SGT (GMT +08:00). To register for the online event, please visit: http://www.comscore.com/request/asiawebcast.asp.
About ComscoreComscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of approximately 2 million Internet users who have given Comscore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. Comscore panelists also participate in survey research that gathers and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Using its proprietary technology, Comscore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of digital behavior and attitudes and helps clients design more powerful marketing strategies that deliver superior ROI. With its recent acquisition of M:Metrics, Comscore is also a leading source of data on mobile usage. Comscore services are used by over 950 clients, including global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, BBC, Carat, Cyworld, Deutsche Bank, France Telecom, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Financial Times, ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestlé, Starcom, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, the University of Chicago, Verizon Services Group and ViaMichelin. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.