Xiaohongshu Poised to Overtake Baidu as China’s Leading Search Engine?

In a groundbreaking development for China’s digital landscape, Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) is emerging as a dominant force in the search engine market.

QuestMobile’s recent report reveals that the platform’s daily search volume has reached an impressive six billion queries in Q4 2024—doubling from three billion in mid-2023. This figure now places Xiaohongshu at nearly half the daily search volume of Badfidu, China’s long-standing search giant.

A New Era in Search Dominance

Industry insiders confirm that Xiaohongshu’s meteoric rise has come at the expense of Baidu’s market share. With Baidu’s daily search volume hovering just above ten billion, Xiaohongshu’s continued growth trajectory suggests it could soon surpass Baidu as China’s most-used search engine. Experts speculate that Baidu relinquishing its top spot is not a matter of if but when.

Xiaohongshu’s surge isn’t accidental. The platform has aggressively recruited top-tier search talent from Baidu. A source revealed that in 2023, Xiaohongshu successfully poached a significant portion of Baidu’s search R&D team. “They’ve tapped into Baidu’s talent pool so effectively that they’ve almost stopped trying to hire more—it seems they’ve already got the best of the best,” one insider remarked.

Baidu Faces an Uphill Battle

Search has long been Baidu’s core business and the backbone of its revenue stream. Losing dominance in this space could pose significant challenges to its valuation and financial stability.

Currently valued at about $31.4 billion, Baidu faces increasing pressure from Xiaohongshu, whose valuation hit $17 billion during a mid-2024 funding round. Adding to its woes, Baidu’s Q3 2024 financial report showed both quarterly and annual revenue declines, with revenue dropping 2.58% year-over-year.

The implications are profound. Search engines have historically been among the most lucrative segments of the internet economy. Microsoft’s Bing, for example, commands a mere 3.4% of the global search market yet generates $12 billion annually. Extrapolated to the Chinese market, this means even a 1% market share shift could represent billions in revenue.

Search Beyond Baidu: The Rise of App Ecosystems

Xiaohongshu’s success underscores a broader trend: the rise of in-app search engines. Users increasingly favor app-specific search functions over traditional web searches.

Xiaohongshu, for instance, reported that 70% of its monthly active users engage in search, with one-third of users beginning their app sessions with a search query. Notably, 90% of users said that Xiaohongshu’s search results significantly influence their purchasing decisions.