Though its stock price has settled well below Google’s, Baidu has made gains in search engine share on its minority stakeholder.
Google owns 2.6 percent of Baidu, but Baidu owns Google in terms of share of the burgeoning Chinese search market. An AP report notes Beijing’s China Internet Network Information Center has Baidu’s share at 52 percent of the Beijing market.
Mountain View-based Google held steady at 33 percent market share in Beijing; the study breaks down share by cities. Companies like Google, Baidu, and other search engines have begun to battle over a growing Chinese market of some 103 million Internet users.
The study by the CNNIC agency covers other cities in China, like Shanghai and Guangzhou. Baidu led Google in both of those markets. In contrast, Yahoo’s market share was noted as being in single digits, alongside some local search engine companies.
Google has aspirations to increasing its share of the Chinese market. The company has established an office in Shanghai and added a top-level domain for its Chinese language site (google.com.cn).
The most public demonstration of Google’s commitment to China has been playing out in courtrooms in California and Washington state. A Microsoft executive, Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, left Redmond to join Google, apparently against the terms of a non-compete clause in his employment contract.
Google wants Dr. Lee to head up its China operations for two years. Microsoft wants him idled for a year before taking up the position with Google as they allege his work for Google in China would directly compete with Microsoft.
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
