Revolutionary mobile-search products needed, analysts say

Although the mobile search market in China has entered a golden time, Internet companies need to come up with revolutionary products instead of simply transplanting search engine services from personal computers to mobile devices, analysts said.

According to the latest report of the China Internet Network Information Center, mobile search has for the first time overtaken mobile news as the second favorite mobile app of Chinese netizens. By the end of June, China had more than 400 million mobile search users.

"We have noticed the trend that more users tend to search on their mobile devices," said the Beijing-based IT consultant Analysys International. "Mobile search has become the next growing point of Chinese Internet companies."

According to the firm, the market of mobile search reached more than 5 billion yuan ($800 million) last year, a year-on-year increase of 82.7 percent.

Baidu Inc is the largest mobile search service provide by market share. According to report by iiMedia, around 40 percent of users chose to use Baidu’s service on their mobile phones.

Easou.com, which provides different search service in different fields, was the first option of around 20 percent users.

Now Chinese Internet giants such as Alibaba and Baidu have launched mobile search services, Analysys International said they need to revolutionize their products based on the characteristics of mobile search users.

Besides Baidu and Alibaba, Qihoo 360 and Sogou Inc, the two Chinese Internet companies, are trying to expand the search market among users by their successful apps, which analyst believed was not going to work on mobile devices.

Easou.com has working on the mobile search market for nine years, during which the company found the best mobile search service is to provide different search engine for different field, such as music, website and books.

"On personal computers, users search for things for their work or study, but on mobile devices, users tend to search for entertainment information," Analysys International said.

"Users want to have more specific search services, such as a search service for online novels," it added.