Sogou

History

Wang Xiaochuan was hired by Sohu.com after graduating from Tsinghua University and tasked to create a new search engine. He continued to lead a small team of students from the nearby Tsinghua University on the project. The Sogou search engine was launched on August 3, 2004, and operated as a separate division within Sohu. In 2006, Sogou invented Sogou Pinyin, the eventual dominant input platform used in China for both desktop PC and mobile. In 2007, Sogou established a search curriculum with Tsinghua University to recruit future engineers and stimulate development. Wang Xiaochuan is known as the "Goalie of the East Gate" for the relentless recruitment from Tsinghua. In 2008, Sogou launched the Sogou Browser.

By 2010, search revenue share was under 1%. Wang Xiaochuan flew to meet Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba.com and convinced him of an equity investment. In return, Sohu.com agreed to spin Sogou from a separate division to an independent company, with a separate P&L line. Pre-IPO stock options were granted to employees for the first time.

By 2012, growth had risen by over 300% and Sohu.com purchased shares back from Jack Ma. It started to seek out new partnerships by 2013. Wang Xiaochuan met with Pony Ma, CEO of Tencent, and convinced him of a merger. The search engine SoSo.com merged with Sogou and an equity investment of US$448 million was made. By 2014, Sogou became the default search engine for QQ.com. Also, in 2014, Sogou became the only search engine to be able to search WeChat public accounts. By early 2015, Sogou became profitable.

Sogou debuted on New York Stock Exchange on 9 November 2017, under the ticker "SOGO". The IPO raised $585 million offering in a bid to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence in its business. In 2018, Sogou reported net sales of $1.1 billion, a net income of $98 million, and reported over $1 billion in cash. Their annual growth rate was 24% over the previous year. In late July 2020, Chinese technology company Tencent made a $2.1 billion bid to buy Sogou, with the decision to accept and regulatory permissions still pending.

According to iResearch statistics, Sogou accounted for 16.7% of the mobile search market share in China.