Search drives 30% of region's mobile traffic

A new report shows Google has outranked Yahoo as the preferred mobile search engine, but the report says marketers must stay ahead of what is now a rapidly changing mobile industry.The findings, taken from the latest Adobe Digital Index report, shows across Asia, mobile search drives more traffic than PC search in all countries, including Hong Kong where 36% use mobile devices and 20% use PCs.Google is Hong Kong's leading mobile search engine with 75% of Hong Kong people using Google and 24% using Yahoo for mobile search.For search through PCs, 55% of Hong Kong people use Google while 39% use Yahoo, the report shows.Adobe said the primary driver of Google's dominant market share is not Android device penetration, but its position as the default search engine on competing smartphones like Apple.Across the region mobile search is most advanced in Australia and Japan, driving upwards of 40% of mobile web traffic.Google is the region's leading mobile search engine, delivering 70% of all mobile search traffic. Its share is highest in Australia and India where it exceeds 95%.But while Google dominates Asia-wide there are strong regional exceptions.In China Baidu is the dominant search platform with a 59% share, while Naver holds a 72% share of South Korea's search market."In APAC mobile search clearly matters, Aseem Chandra, vice president of marketing at Adobe Digital Marketing Business, said."But because of significant regional variations, businesses need a country-by-country mobile strategy."Findings of the report were based on 2.5 billion anonymous visits to 125 websites from 11 countries in APAC including Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea.