Google may have made friends with Shenzhen Xunlei Network Technology Ltd., a Chinese company that deals in online videos. Reports indicate that Google will invest in the company, although there are no details yet about the alleged deal.
Rumors concerning a relationship between the two corporations surfaced in early December; GigaOM’s Katie Fehrenbacher covered the story, and did a good job of defining Xunlei for us Westerners. It’s “a Chinese P2P startup,” she wrote, “is reported to have between 75 million to 100 million downloads of its software . . . is getting an average of 140,000 downloads per day,” and “has around 200 employees.”
A couple of weeks passed, and then Kai-fu Lee, Google’s president for Greater China, said at a press conference that Google would not pursue a partnership with any Chinese company. We reported on his comments, while noting that Google could probably use some help in that particular region.
And now it appears that Google is going to accept (or pay for) some assistance, after all. “The investment will probably be disclosed next month,” according to John Liu of the Bloomberg News. “Google’s investment in Xunlei, based in Shenzhen, south China, may help it tap growing popularity for online videos in the world’s second-biggest Internet market,” he continued.
On something of a side note, statistics indicate that China’s ranking could soon change. Rex Dixon writes that, “according to Deutsche Securities Ltd., which is based out of Hong Kong, China had 123 million internet [users] and they are 2nd only to the United States. They are due to pass the USA within the next 2 years according to projections.”
All the more reason for Google to invest in Xunlei.
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Doug is a staff writer for murdok. Visit murdok for the latest eBusiness news.
