A ban on Google combined with a surging connected population across China has resulted in web service Baidu increasing its share of global search ad spend to 8.8%, up from 7.6% last year.
Search budgets in China will total $14.90 billion this year, up 32.8% from 2014, accounting for 18.2% of all search spending worldwide, reports eMarketer.
Meanwhile Google’s ban across mainland China, under the country’s policy of internet censorship, has already cost the US internet giant financially, and has the potential to damage its influence in eastern markets.
Across China, online shopping is growing in popularity and eMarketer claims there is a strong case for search and discovery among new online buyers.
Google triumphs
Despite its notable success of late, Baidu still remains second to Google in the $81.59 billion search ad market.
The US company is tipped to take 55% of search spend globally this year and eMarketer estimates Google with see 15.7% year-on-year growth from the channel in 2015, increasing to $44.46 billion worldwide.
In contrast, Microsoft and Yahoo combined will take just 6.5% of spend in the global search ad market in 2015.
Digital ad spending as a whole will reach $170.85 billion this year, states eMarketer, with search ads accounting for $81.59 billion – an increase of 16.2% over last year.
To view the net search ad revenues worldwide by company, see the graph below.