China's search engine market booms in Q3

SHANGHAI - China's search engine market has continued to heat up, with its advertising revenue hitting 10.92 billion yuan ($1.79 billion) in the third quarter of 2013, according to new data from a major Internet analyst.

The figure indicated a 17.5-percent quarter-on-quarter increase, and a 40.7-percent year-on-year increase, showed statistics gathered by iResearch Consulting Group.

China's leading search engine, Baidu, accounted for 81.4 percent of the market share while Google suffered a decline in performance and accounted for only 12.3 percent in the third quarter.

Qihoo 360's search engine, which was launched in 2012, showed its growth potential as its market share inched up to 1.6 percent.

A rapid increase in mobile search engine users and continuously improving and diversifying mobile search engine products prompted the surge in the market, according to iResearch.