Qihoo 360 and Sogou are currently the only winners in the China search engine war, while Baidu’s share continues to decline. An interesting similarity between the two companies is that they both own alternative channels to drive their search user base.

Qihoo 360 relies on its web browser software (26.88%, #2 market coverage) and portal to drive search users; while Sogou mainly relies on its input method software (87.81% #1 market coverage), but it also has its own web browser (8.10%, #3 market coverage) in addition.

If this proves to be a winning strategy, Baidu will too have to consider branching out as it does not currently offer alternative services.