Shenma Inc. () is a "mobile-first"

search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

for China that was launched in April 2014. It is a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

between Alibaba Group and

UCWeb UCWeb Inc. (also known as UC Mobile) is a Chinese mobile Internet company that offers products and services including mobile browser, UC News, and search. Its flagship product, UC Browser, topped the Chinese, Indonesian and Indian markets in ...

. In April 2017, according to China Internet Watch, Shenma had an 8.8% of the China search engine market share, which made it the second most used search engine after

Baidu Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the l ...

. Shenma comes with

UC Browser UC Browser is a web browser developed by mobile internet company UCWeb, a subsidiary of the Alibaba Group. It was the most popular mobile browser in India and Indonesia, and the second most popular one in China as of 2017. Its world-wide brow ...

, a

mobile browser A mobile browser is a web browser designed for use on a mobile device such as a mobile phone or PDA. Mobile browsers are optimized to display Web content most effectively on small screens on portable devices. Mobile browser software must be smal ...

with an estimated 20% share of China's browser market and over 30% of China's mobile browser marketshare. Shenma search was co-founded as a mobile search engine by

and Alibaba in 2013. In 2014, Alibaba acquired UCWeb.

Litigation

On April 13, 2020, Shenma filed a lawsuit against

Sogou Sogou, Inc. () is a Chinese technology company that offers a search engine. It is a subsidiary of Tencent. The offices of Sogou are located on the southeast corner of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Sogou also has offices in Chengdu co-locate ...

for traffic hijacking. In the filing, the mobile search company accused Sougou of misleading and reeling in potential Shenma users through Sogou Input Method, and for illegally trafficking data. Shenma told the court that the hijacked traffic data reached 1.897 billion. Shenma was seeking RMB 102 million (around $16 million in American dollars) in compensation. On June 27, 2019, the

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

Haidian Court ruled that the Sogou search company was guilty of hijacking

UC browser UC Browser is a web browser developed by mobile internet company UCWeb, a subsidiary of the Alibaba Group. It was the most popular mobile browser in India and Indonesia, and the second most popular one in China as of 2017. Its world-wide brow ...

and Shenma search traffic through candidate words, constituted unfair competition. They were sentenced to pay a fine of 20 million yuan.

References

Companies based in Beijing Internet search engines Online companies of China Internet properties established in 2014 Chinese brands 2014 establishments in China {{China-company-stub