Information Technology News
- Google expects to close gap with Baidu.com
Date: 28-Aug-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
GOOGLE Inc. expects mobile-phone services will help it overtake Baidu.com Inc. to become China's biggest Internet search company as more people in the nation surf the Web on their handsets instead of personal computers.
The number of Chinese consumers searching for information on their mobile phones may surpass those visiting Web sites on computers by 2009, Google China president Kai-fu Lee, 45, said yesterday. He declined to predict when Google will be bigger than Baidu in China.
Google offers search services for subscribers of China Mobile Ltd., the world's largest wireless carrier by users, and growth may increase once a mobile technology that allows faster downloads is unveiled. China is expected to issue licenses for high-speed, or so-called third-generation, networks before the Beijing Olympics next August.
'Working with China Mobile is an advantage for Google,'said Steve Weinstein, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland. 'For a company with the resources and money that Google has, the game is never over.''
Beijing-based Baidu, which sells more than twice as many search-linked Web advertisements in China as Google, doesn't have a local mobile partnership.
China, the world's biggest mobile market, had 501.7 million mobile-phone users at the end of June, exceeding the combined population of the European Union, according to the Ministry of Information Industry. China has four times more mobile subscribers than Internet users.
China Mobile and rival China Unicom Ltd. have added a total of more than 6 million subscribers every month this year, according to government figures.
Google has introduced services such as online maps and Internet spreadsheets to attract users. The company plans to start social-networking services in China similar to News Corp.'s MySpace and Facebook, Lee said. Google may form partnerships or buy local companies to reach that goal, he said.
In the second quarter, Google's share of the Chinese search market rose to 23 percent from 19 percent in the first quarter, while Baidu's climbed to 58 percent from 57 percent, according to Beijing-based researcher Analysys International.
China's introduction of 3G mobile services will prompt more users to locate restaurants and stores on their handsets, Lee said. The country has said it will introduce 3G services in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, without giving more details.
Although Baidu doesn't have a partnership with China Mobile or China Unicom, the nation's two largest wireless carriers, the company in April 2006 agreed with Intel Corp. to jointly develop search technologies for handsets.
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