An industry report released in Xiamen Friday showed that the market of China's online search engine witnessed robust growth last year.

The report released at a meeting on the development of China's search engine industry held in Xiamen City, eastern Fujian Province, showed that the market of the online service hit 1.25 billion yuan (US$151 million) in 2004, rising 81 percent from the previous year.

The report also predicted that the market of online searching engine in China would reach 2.3 billion yuan (US$278 million) this year, and might rocket to 5.62 billion yuan (US$680 million) by 2007.

A total of 50 million Internet users in China used the online searching service every day in 2004, and in December there were 188.4 million clicks for online searches.

Huang Chengqing, chairman of the Internet Society of China, said that with the development of information technology and the popularization of computers, online searches have become a major way to access information for Chinese citizens.

Representatives of big name online service companies and investors, including IDG, Yahoo China and IBM, attended the two-day meeting. 
 
(Xinhua News Agency April 9, 2005)