What people search for online can be a good signal of present and future consumer demand. In March 2009, we believe we became the first bank research team to use Google Tools to track what people in China were searching for online. We are now excited to find that Baidu, which has an 80% share of the search market among China’s online population of 300mn, has developed a similar tool, the Baidu Index (BI). Again, we believe we are the first to use this tool to highlight what the Chinese consumer is thinking about. Our main findings are as follows:
? Interest in buying a home has risen in the last few months, after plateauing at a high level in 2010. This is a bullish signal for near-term housing demand.
Interest in buying a car is rising again, too.
Online interest in inflation is through the roof.
Wealth management products appear to be the dominant inflation management tool for retail investors.
First, a quick note on how the BI works. We did all of our searches in simplified Chinese and limited them to searches in mainland China. The results are an index representing the number of daily searches for that term over time via Baidu’s search engine (we asked Baidu’s investor relations department how they calculate this index, but the exact details have not been made public). Despite this lack of transparency, it is clear that the BI is different from Google’s equivalent tool. Google compares the number of searches for one search term to all other searches carried out at that time, and thus provides a sense of how popular a search term is relative to others. The Baidu Index, in contrast, will show more searches simply as a result of an increase in the online population, and in the number of people using Baidu. As a result, we should focus on periods of stability and spurts in growth in the BI. Most of the BI data starts in June 2006 and runs to December 2010. Unfortunately, Baidu does not allow the data to be downloaded, so we have eyeballed the charts and recreated them as best we can. Baidu also provides statistics on the gender, age, occupation, education and location of searchers. To smooth out the volatility, we have averaged the monthly data over three months in our charts. Housing interest continues to rise Nationwide searches for ‘buy a home’ (‘买房’) are rising again, as Chart 1 shows. The only time searches for this term declined between June 2006 and December 2010 was during a brief period in Q1 and Q2-2008. When searches recovered in Q3-2008, transactions followed, and so did the monthly average selling price (ASP). Strong interest was maintained throughout 2009-10. Inter-


estingly, there was no dip in searches following the property-market cooling measures announced in April 2010. Even more interestingly, search interest has risen again since Q3-2010. This suggests that strong transaction volumes can be expected in the near term. Looking at city-specific data (available since October 2008), searches from the top three cities (Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen) followed almost the same pattern as nationwide searches until recently, but the two have diverged since H2-2010 (see Chart 2). This suggests that housing demand in Tier 1 cities has weakened, while buying interest in other cities has risen gradually. This reflects transaction activity (for more details on China’s housing market, see Special Report, 18 November 2010, ‘China– Our big real-estate survey, Phase 2’).
Planes, trains and automobiles As Chart 3 shows, searches for ‘buy a car’(‘买车’) are also rising again, suggesting that even after a strong year and the end of most car-buying subsidies, sales may still have some momentum. We expect passenger car sales growth of 10-15% in 2011. That said, given that the main subsidy for car buyers ended on 30 December 2010, the rise in searches may represent a surge in interest before the subsidies disappeared. The January 2011 data for ‘buy a car’ searches should be more telling. Chart 4 shows searches for ‘buy a TV’ (‘买电视’), ‘buy a computer’ (‘买电脑’) and ‘buy a mobile phone’ (‘买手机’). While searches for durable goods like TVs and computers have been quite steady, searches for ‘buy a mobile phone’ rose sharply in Q2-2010 and plateaued in Q3-2010. In March 2010, searches for ‘travel abroad’ (‘国外旅游’) rose significantly and have remained at this higher level. This is consistent with passenger trends on international air routes, as Chart 5 shows. With recovering confidence and strong income growth, Chinese consumers are holidaying again.
Inflation is the hot issue Official CPI inflation breached 5% y/y in November 2010. Searches for ‘inflation’ (‘通货膨胀’) and ‘CPI’ are shown in Chart 6. Searches move in line with official CPI, though there is more online interest in inflation now than in February 2008, when official CPI inflation hit 8.7% y/y. In Chart 7, we compare searches for ‘grain price’ (‘粮食价格’), ‘pork price’ (‘猪肉价格’) and ‘vegetable price’ (‘蔬菜价格’). All rose sharply in December. Searches for ‘grain price’ have remained lower than before; searches for ‘pork price’ are up a bit, but are still far below their mid-2007 peak. In late

2010, searches for ‘vegetable price’ surged – unsurprisingly, given the vegetable price increases. What to invest in Amid broad concerns about inflation, we looked at how online China is responding in terms of investment options. Chart 8 shows searches for four investment options: gold, FX, structured products and equities. (‘黄金投资’, ‘外汇投资’, ‘理财产品’, and‘股票’).
? Searches for ‘FX’ are highly volatile, as are searches for ‘equities’. Search interest in equities peaked just before the end of the bull market in H2-2007 and fell dramatically afterwards (see Chart 9). Search interest is still range-bound, providing little basis to judge where the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index will go next.
? Gold has seen a steady rise in interest in recent months. Searches are relatively consistent with gold price trends (see Chart 10).
? Structured wealth management products are the clear winner. In recent years, banks have aggressively marketed these products, which are popular because of their ability to offer returns above deposit rates (see On the Ground, 14 September 2010, ‘China– How to prevent a housing bubble’).
In short, then, online China is concerned about inflation, and is anxious to protect its wealth with structured products offered by banks, as well as home purchases and, to a lesser extent, gold investment. Interest in home-buying has recovered in Tier 2 and 3 cities, but not in Tier 1 cities.
(Author: from Standard Charted Bank (China) Limited)