Chinese search engine Baidu continues to outperform Google in the major Chinese population centres, new research has found.

A survey by China IntelliConsulting Corporation (CIC) found that the search engine was the most popular in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.

Over the past 12 months, Baidu has increased its share of the Chinese market and now accounts for around 69.5 per cent of Chinese web users.

That is a 7.6 per cent increase on its market share last year and stands in marked contrast to Google’s performance in the People’s Republic.

The US-based search engine has seen its market share drop by 1.1 per cent over the past 12 months and now accounts for less than a quarter of all searches made in China.

Despite this, Google is still the number one search engine in the world, accounting for around half of all online searches made.