Boom time for search market (China Economic Net)

China's online search market will breach the 10-billion-yuan (US$1.39 billion) mark in four years to overtake Japan and enter the world's top three.

"The amount of search inquiries actually has exceeded that of Japan or the United States, but the revenue from each search is far less than those two markets," said iResearch in a report.

As of last year, Beijing-based Baidu.com had the largest share of 60 percent.

Google China ranked second with a share of 21.2 percent as it attracted more customers from real estate, education and healthcare. China Yahoo! finished third last year with a share of 14 percent.