Some interesting news was released from Chinese search giant Baidu this week. It’s foreign exchange industry report shows search query dropped in February 2015, not coincidentally, volume in the industry from January also tailed off a bit so these are highly correlated data sets. The drop in search queries related to FX was due to the Chinese New Year and Spring festival but you can see the enormous spike in search for FX related queries coming in January, the month of the Swiss franc fireworks. Thus, it is quite natural to see a pullback to an equilibrium with the long term trend still pointing north as online trading gains popularity within China.
Many Chinese traders were indeed clients of several of the brokers who went under or experienced instability in January and they were understandably concerned reading up on the industry and upping their FX and regulatory knowledge. Moreover, the report shows that mobile query is close to playing at parity to PC queries except within working hours, although PC search for FX is still dominating at almost 3:1.
Citizens in Guangong, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Beijing and Zhejiang provinces have a bigger search demand for forex related information.
Another search engine popular within China is from QS Search Limited, the international advertising unit of 360.com, many financial brokers are advertising on 360, including famous brands like FXCM & GMO Click and even some overseas brokers in UK and Australia are also promoting through 360.