Chinese Market Data Trends for Baidu and 360

Looking at data in Baidu’s Index and 360’s So Index is one of the best ways for online marketers to understand Chinese market trends and Chinese search engine user behavior.

iPhone Search
Let’s check out mobile phone searches. On Baidu, iPhone searches are most popular in the following geographic regions: Zhejiang Province (number one), Guangdong Province (number two), and Beijing (number three).

Baidu’s Index and 360’s So Index are two indexes we have looked at in past columns. Today, let’s look at Baidu Trends – another tool for understanding user behavior in the Chinese market. In addition to search query data from search engines, trend data from local social media sites such as Weibo should also be considered as a great source of data in understanding user behavior in the Chinese market.

Let’s take a look at some travel-related topics, as travel-related trends are usually seasonally based.
When you compare the brand names of the two largest local travel booking websites in China – Ctrip.com and Qunar.com – this is the trend you will see:

In terms of genders, both travel booking website brands show similar trends and both show they are more popular among female users.

In terms of age groups, Qunar is more popular among the 19-to-24 age group, but Ctrip is more popular with the 25-to-34 age group. This might suggest that Ctrip is mostly used by Chinese workers in the early years of their working careers, while Qunar is mostly used by college/university students or recent graduates. (See below.)

Now, let’s compare two very popular local travel destinations – for example: Huangshan versus Changcheng – by looking at trend data. Weibo provides this real-time trends for the last 24 hours:

Baidu Trends is another tool used to look up travel destination popularity. For travel-related data, this tool usually demonstrates in map format. For a single city (e.g. Beijing), it can show places of interest that are the most crowded on a single day (e.g. December 12, 2014).