baidu

China's leading search engine Baidu is looking to go abroad and invest more overseas in the near future.

Baidu plans to go abroad

According to Baidu CEO Robin Li, the company should grab the opportunity offered by the international market. However, he didn’t mention which countries the company was interested in. Baidu already operates a search engine in Japan. 

Robin Li, who opened Baidu's first office in a Beijing motel, expects the move to be made “as early as possible”. He hopes to have significant revenue outside of China in the next 5 to 15 years.

Other Chinese companies have also made efforts to expand abroad, such as Alibaba, the country's top eCommerce site, which recently acquired the US eCommerce site Vendio.

Despite competition, Baidu still leads China’s search market

Baidu currently leads the Chinese search market with a 70% share according to research firm Analysys International. The company's main rival, Google, ranks second with 24%.

Baidu wants to become more than a search company

Baidu is developing several other projects for the mobile market. According to Robin Li, the company is preparing a "revolutionary" product. That should be a mobile OS to compete with Google's Android.

Other sources say that Baidu is also developing its own browser.

This post contains market shares for search engines in the world and several countries including the US, China, Japan and South-Korea. Data provided by comScore is based on “expanded search” definition, which includes searches not only conducted on the core search engines.

Search engine market share - worldwide

Google Sites ranked as the top search site worldwide with 87.8 billion searches in December 2009, or almost 67 percent of the global search market. Yahoo! Sites ranked second globally with 9.4 billion searches, followed by Chinese search engine Baidu with 8.5 billion searches.

Microsoft Sites reached 4.1 billion searches, on the strength of its successful introduction of new search engine Bing. Russian search engine Yandex also achieved considerable gains, growing to 1.9 billion searches.

Search engine market share - US

In January 2009, Google Sites led with 11.7 billion searches, representing almost 59 percent of the US search market. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with nearly 3 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (1.2 billion) and AOL (781 million).

Search engine market share - Europe

In March 2008, Europeans conducted almost 25 billion searches. Google Sites holds the leading position with more than 19 billion searches conducted, representing 79 percent of the European search market. Google’s top position was followed by eBay, which accounted for 3.1 percent of European searches. Russian search portal Yandex ranked third with 2.2 percent search market share, slightly ahead of Yahoo! Sites at 2.0 percent and Microsoft Sites at 1.9 percent.

Search engine market share - China

The Chinese conducted almost 11 billion searches in July 2008. The leader of the market is the Chinese search engine Baidu, far ahead of Google (see our recent article showing that Google's loss is Baidu's gain in China). Other players such as Soso and Sogou try to gain market share but aren't very successful. 

Search engine market share - Japan

Yahoo! Sites led the search ranking in Japan with 3.5 billion searches in January 2009, followed by Google Sites with 2.6 billion searches and Rakuten with 153 million searches.

Search engine market share - South Korea

In April 2009, 3.4 billion searches were conducted in South Korea. NHN Corporation, which includes Naver.com, led the search market with 2.1 billion searches conducted on its sites (62 percent search market share), followed by Daum with 680 million searches (20 percent) and Google Sites with 251 million searches (7 percent).

If you have more up-to-date data about search engine market share, notably in Asian countries, feel free to share it with us.

A new Chinese rule about online mapping services threatens Google Maps activity in China.

China introduces mapping services regulations

According to the regulations introduced this month, all firms providing online map and location services in China are required to apply for approval from the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping.

Foreign firms will have to set up joint ventures or partnerships with local firms in order to get a license. Authorities will be allowed to shut down the service if providers do not get a licence by the end of this year.

This rule could lead to exclude foreign companies from providing their services in China. 

Reshaping the online mapping market in China ?

Today, China's online mapping services market is led by three actors: Google, its Chinese rival search engine Baidu and another local company DDMap. They account for more than 50% of the market.

Google may have trouble obtaining a licence from the regulator because all its mapping servers are based outside China and the new rules require providers to keep servers storing map data inside the country.

Google may have also have difficulties to get the license since it already failed to negotiate with Chinese government about censoring search engine results in China which led to the redirection of Google.cn to Google.com.hk.

Nokia China also announced its interest in getting a licence for its Ovi Map service.

The Chinese search engine company Baidu, and the mobile phone software foundation Symbian announced the launch of a joint laboratory to allow wireless Box computing within the Symbian platform.

The venture aims at jointly developing the technology as well as encouraging innovation in the technology ecosystem.

Baidu's Box computing

Box computing is a technology developed by Baidu that allows extensive search experience by giving the user relevant results.

For example, someone may be searching for anti-virus software. Baidu’s box computing technology do not need to show the user the search results but simply ask them if he or she wants to download the anti-virus software.

Mobile Box computing

With the full integration of box computing technology within Symbian platform, a user will be able to search the internet as well as their smartphone’s applications, all from a single search box.

It will give mobile internet users improved access to information on the Internet and also allows them to search information stored on the device, including pictures, music and SMS.

Developing a technology ecosystem

Symbian and Baidu will provide the complete solution to handset manufacturers and operators as well as help third-party developers and service providers to incorporate box computing in applications and web services.

The goal is to encourage innovation in the technology ecosystem.