2015 is the year that Chinese search engine Sogou expects mobile search traffic to finally outstrip PC.
At the close of this quarter’s earnings report, Sogou CEO Xiaochuan Wang claimed the company’s partnership with Tencent’s WeChat had seen their aggregate search traffic rise over 60%, while mobile traffic jumped 130%.
“It’s expected that mobile search traffic will surpass PC traffic at some point of 2015,” said Wang. “Our in-depth cooperation with Tencent, in particular with Weixin, has brought unique capabilities to our mobile search and further enhanced our competitiveness.”
In February this year Chinese search giant and market front-runner, Baidu, reported that their 47.5% rise in quarterly revenue was mobile driven, with mobile revenue up 36% in Q3.
China’s second largest search engine, Qihoo-backed ‘Haosou’ rebranded earlier this year [from 360] to launch a in independent search brand that is better equipped for China’s mobile market. like Baidu and Sogou, the company’s third quarter earnings showed that mobile was the key force behind their expansion, with a 59.9% growth-spurt since the same period the preceding year.
China is a country that has adopted mobile like no other, largely bypassing trends in desktop computing in favor for an increasingly large pool of local and international smartphone offerings.
In 2012, mobile gamers outstripped PC players in China. In July last year, the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) reported that 527 million people, or 83% of the country’s internet users, were accessing the internet via mobile. This bypassed the 81% that used desktops, meaning that there is a growing number of people in China who experience a totally mobile computing and internet experience.
A torrent of options in highly functional smartphones offer many Chinese people a cheap alternative to desktop computing. At the same time, an industry focus on developing mobile platforms for gaming, shopping, finance and social has seen the development of a rich, unparalleled mobile ecosystem in China.
Aside form their gains in mobile search, Sohu’s strong areas in their Q4 report were gaming and video media. Despite reaching profitability year over year, their quarterly report showed static and negative growth quarter over quarter. Over all areas of the business, they showed a 5% QOQ loss in total revenues with a 25% YOY gain.
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