Short answer
Baidu is the most used search engine in China, with 50.83% of measured search traffic in July 2026, followed by Bing (22.84%) and 360 Search/Haosou (8.95%), per StatCounter. Google has been unavailable since 2010. A fast-growing share of “search” now happens in AI assistants: Doubao alone had 382 million monthly users in June 2026 (QuestMobile).
- Desktop and web search: Baidu first, Bing a strong second, then 360, Sogou and Shenma.
- Mobile: much search happens inside super-apps (Baidu App, WeChat, Douyin) that public share trackers do not measure well.
- AI: Doubao, Qwen and DeepSeek together reach hundreds of millions of monthly users — a brand absent from their answers is invisible to a large group of buyers.
China search engine market share (StatCounter)
Share of search engine pageviews in China, all platforms, from StatCounter. Three snapshots show how much the figures move:
| Search engine | Nov 2025 | Jun 2026 | Jul 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baidu | 63.97% | 47.44% | 50.83% |
| Bing | 15.97% | 23.24% | 22.84% |
| Haosou (360 Search) | — | 14.02% | 8.95% |
| Yandex | — | — | 13.2% |
| Not available in mainland China since 2010 | |||
“—” means we did not record a figure for that month. How to read this table:
- It is a sample. StatCounter counts pageviews on websites that run its tracker, which skews toward desktop and foreign-facing sites.
- Yandex at 13.2% is likely an artefact (bot or VPN traffic) rather than Chinese users choosing Yandex; we show it because it is in the source, not because we think it is real demand.
- Sogou was taken private by Tencent in 2021 and now powers search inside WeChat; we found no reliable 2026 share figure for it, so we do not quote one.
The engines, one by one
| Engine | Owner | Where it is strong | What it means for brands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baidu | Baidu | Web + Baidu App (~640M monthly users, Q2 2026); Baidu Baike and Zhidao | The default for research and brand queries; Baike entries and Zhihu answers rank high |
| Bing (cn.bing.com) | Microsoft | Windows PCs, Edge, office users | Matters for B2B and white-collar buyers; also feeds Microsoft Copilot |
| 360 Search (Haosou) | Qihoo 360 | 360 browser users, PC | Secondary; usually follows Baidu-style optimisation |
| Sogou | Tencent | Search inside WeChat | WeChat official-account articles are the key content to own |
| Shenma | Alibaba (UC) | UC browser on mobile | Mobile-only; small for most foreign brands |
| Ernie / Wenxiaoyan | Baidu | AI assistant, over 200M monthly users in Jan 2026 (WSJ, via Cybernews) | Baidu’s AI answers draw on Baidu’s own ecosystem first |
AI assistants are China’s new search box
QuestMobile’s June 2026 data (published 14 July 2026, reported by IT之家 and 凤凰网科技) shows how many people now ask an AI instead of typing a search:
| AI app | Owner | Monthly active users, Jun 2026 | Year-on-year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doubao (豆包) | ByteDance | 382 million | +172.1% |
| Qwen (千问) | Alibaba | 167 million | — |
| DeepSeek | DeepSeek | 130 million | −20.3% |
| Yuanbao (元宝) | Tencent | 49.84 million | — |
| Kimi | Moonshot AI | 7.29 million | — |
| All AI apps | 499 million |
Doubao alone now has more monthly users than Bing’s entire Chinese audience is likely to reach. When a buyer asks Doubao “which brand of X is best?”, the answer is built from sources Doubao reads — often Douyin, Toutiao and Chinese web pages, not your English site. See our benchmark of how Chinese AI engines recommend brands.
What this means if you are entering China — or going global from it
| Your situation | Where buyers search | First moves |
|---|---|---|
| Foreign brand selling into China | Baidu, WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Doubao, DeepSeek | Chinese pages reachable from the mainland; Baidu Baike entry; Zhihu and Xiaohongshu coverage; test Doubao/Qwen/DeepSeek answers |
| Chinese brand going global (出海) | Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Reddit | English pages that OAI-SearchBot and Googlebot can crawl; Reddit and review-site presence; test Western AI answers |
| Brand selling in both | All of the above | Track both sets of AI engines side by side; fix the weaker market first |
MaxGrowth runs GEO · AI search optimization across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini and across Doubao, Qwen and DeepSeek, plus Reddit community marketing for brands going global.
Check your visibility in Chinese and Western AI
The free check above asks all six engines your category questions. For an ongoing view, use the AI brand visibility tracker with weekly re-tests, or read how visible Chinese brands are in AI answers.
FAQ
What is the most used search engine in China?
Baidu. StatCounter measured Baidu at 50.83% of search engine pageviews in China in July 2026, ahead of Bing at 22.84%. Inside apps, Baidu App also reported about 640 million monthly users in Q2 2026.
Is Google available in China?
No. Google stopped running search in mainland China in 2010 and is not reachable there without a VPN, so it barely registers in mainland traffic statistics.
Why is Bing’s share so high in China?
Bing (cn.bing.com) is accessible in mainland China and is the default on many Windows PCs and in Microsoft Edge. StatCounter mostly samples desktop and website traffic, which favours Bing; in-app mobile search, where Baidu, WeChat and Douyin dominate, is under-counted.
Do AI chatbots replace search engines in China?
Partly. QuestMobile counted 499 million monthly users of AI apps in June 2026, led by Doubao with 382 million. Many product questions now go to Doubao, Qwen or DeepSeek first, so brands need to check what those assistants say, not just their Baidu ranking.
How do foreign brands get visible in Chinese search and AI answers?
Publish Chinese-language pages that mainland crawlers can reach, get covered on platforms Chinese engines read (Zhihu, Xiaohongshu, Baidu Baike, industry media), and test what Doubao, Qwen and DeepSeek say about you before and after.
How reliable are China search market share figures?
Treat them as directional. StatCounter only sees sites running its tracker and changes month to month — Baidu moved from 63.97% in November 2025 to 47.44% in June 2026 — and no public source measures in-app search across WeChat, Douyin and AI assistants on one basis.
Selling into China or going global from it? We make brands visible in both sets of AI engines.
See GEO · AI search optimization