Baidu’s share of searches in China increased 6% from Q4 to Q1. Google redirecting visitors from mainland China to their Hong Kong site doesn’t seem a likely factor for this growth, given that Google’s change didn’t happen until March 22nd. It looks more like the increasing number of Chinese internet users is responsible. The share of Chinese citizens regularly accessing the internet was less than 30% in 2009. Internet penetration is increasing a lot faster in China than in the US, where penetration is now above 75%.

Employees at Razorfish’s offices in Beijing and Shanghai report that Google users are loyal, citing the accuracy and relevance Google is trusted to provide. Also, Google is necessary for searching for English-language pages in China.  Baidu results are only available in Chinese. Google will have a significant market in China until Baidu makes a big strategy shift.

Baidu’s strategy is to increase query share by concentrating on new users, rather than stealing from Google. Baidu also hopes to capture more of the mobile search share in China. This week, executives from Baidu explained their ambition to achieve the same query share from mobile as they have on PCs. With less than 1% of their sales teams dedicated to international business, it’s clear Baidu is not looking to the West.

Last Friday, Joe DeVita, Senior Search Manager at Razorfish, embarked on a journey to Beijing to meet with Razorfish, Baidu and Google. We were excited to send him off on Friday, but we had no idea that he’d be in China when Google finally reached a resolution on their threats to leave China due to censorship and intrusions by Chinese hackers.

No doubt that Joe will encounter many search celebrities during his trip. We’re excited for him to report back and are soliciting input for questions that Joe can ask Baidu, Razorfish and Google while he’s in China. So please post comments below or email us at razorfishsearch@razorfish.com

SearchShot of Joe before he left for China last Friday: