The real search engine market share in Hong Kong

GOOGLE IS THE MOST USED SEARCH ENGINE IN HONG KONG, DISTANTLY FOLLOWED BY YAHOO, BING, AND BAIDU. That's the result of a million clicks from these four search engines to seven of our client's websites representing a cross-section of industries.

Why did Yahoo lose ground in Hong Kong?

Yahoo has been in decline for a decade now and Baidu, China's most used search engine, has not been able to gain a foothold in Hong Kong. Why did Google win? Off the top of my head I'd say:

• Google delivers better search results
• The big news a decade ago that Google exited China but redirected google.cn to google.com.hk, leading to more people learning about Google
• The homepage of Yahoo is a news portal, whereas Google is famously clean and easy to navigate
• Expat population and student returnees spreading the word

Today, in our experience, users of Yahoo tend to be more local residents who search in Cantonese, often resulting in lower converting traffic. Therefore Google is where you should invest your budget if you want the highest quantity and quality of clicks to your website.

What makes Hong Kong different when it comes to online search?

1. The city is bilingual. Cantonese and English are both official languages. Furthermore, traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong instead of simplified Chinese like in mainland China.

2. Smartphones dominate. "Don't keep your eyes only on your mobile phone!" chides the station announcement in Hong Kong's MTR. Almost 92% of Hong Kongers have smartphones and 96% of them go online on a daily basis, the highest in Asia.

3. People prefer to buy in store. Going to the mall is a favorite pastime in Hong Kong and due to the dense population many people prefer the convenience of stepping out of their home to shop instead of ordering online and waiting.

Learn more about our SEO or SEM services now. We've been doing search marketing in Hong Kong for 8 years.