Baidu and Google are the first choice for more than 92 per cent of China's urban internet users, leaving little space for competitors, according to a new market survey.

Both companies continue to gain users but, while Google is expanding faster, it still lags far behind its local rival.

More than two-thirds of Chinese internet users surveyed by local research firm China IntelliConsulting Corporation (CIC) named Baidu as their favourite search engine, and just 23 per cent chose Google.

CIC polled internet users in China's three largest cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Google's share of the market has increased 1.4 per cent over the past six months, according to the survey, while Baidu's inched up 0.5 per cent during the same period.

"Google's market share gains are mainly from student users, and Google has still been losing its high-end users to Baidu," said the CIC analysis.

About two thirds of Google users said that they were positive about recent improvements to the site.

Other search engines now have little more than a toehold in the market. Yahoo's share sank from 5.2 per cent to 2.3 per cent over the past year after falling out of favour with non-search customers.

Just 8.8 per cent of Chinese users now cite Yahoo as their most favoured non-search site, a fall from 10.8 per cent one year ago. Baidu and Google scored 5.8 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively.

Local portal Sina leads the non-search market with a 36.2 per cent share, trailed by Sohu with 23.4 per cent.