Running To Catch Baidu In China

Just who are Google, AOL and Yahoo! chasing in China anyway? Let's take a look at China's top search engine Baidu.com and see who is making all the ad dollars in China right now.

It seems like every day I have the opportunity to report on either a Google blunder in the international market, or some move by AOL or Yahoo! towards capturing a market somewhere. Baidu just reported their first quarter revenue of 35.6 million dollars, up over 100 percent sic last year's numbers. Baidu is in firm control of the booming Chinese market and they do not appear to be slowing down so that anyone can catch up. According to news from IDGNS via Yahoo! the road ahead is paved with continued revenue growth on the order of 41 percent per quarter. So, if you were wondering why there is so much news about China, the answer is money and lots of it.

As you can see from the two screens I have provided, Baidu is essentially a Google clone of sorts, so it will be difficult to differentiate Google from Baidu particularly given the Chinese version's entrenchment and organization. I also provide a screen of the MP3 aspect of Baidu, and even though I do not read Chinese it is easy to see that the site is well organized with world and local stories, music, video and ads.

I am a fan of local businesses and sites tailored for their users, and I do not see how any of the western variants on a theme are going to solve any problems for the Chinese market other than providing other places to go. YouTube and Yahoo! are going to continue to have issues with the Chinese government, as long as there is a large local interest involved and political propaganda is a theme there.

Google may have half the money in the world, but until they can offer services unavailable to the Chinese market they will probably be second at best in China. Perhaps that is the strategy any way, to just be second in the largest market in the world. I just wish Baidu would provide an English language variant so we could enjoy some of their content.