A new research and development center in Shanghai will be Google’s third in the country, and should open up in 2007.
More importantly for the company, the potential for online advertising profits in China has increased. By the end of the year, Google should see the number of Chinese sites displaying Google advertising double by year’s end.
That’s not a very large number currently. Only a dozen sites display Google ads, and Google expects at least 30 sites to be part of its Chinese AdSense network by the time 2007 begins.
A location for the Shanghai center has not been located yet, according to Lee. Existing centers in Beijing and Taibei employ 100 engineers. Lee said the number of Shanghai staff has not been determined.
“We will hire people who are qualified, without any limit,” Lee said in the report. He also noted that the rollout of services like ones for mobile phones will not happen right away: “The data transfer speed on phones in China is limited as 3G is not available.”
Google search has trailed market leader Baidu in the country. To help combat the company where Google once held a minority stake, Google will increase the number of servers operating in China.
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David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
