Online advertising in China could hit revenues of $500 million this year, and Microsoft plans to be part of the future growth of the 100 million user Chinese market.
The world’s biggest tech company told Reuters it expects demand for Hotmail and MSN Search to make Chiina one of Microsoft’s top five markets in five years.
As it stands now, China is not in Microsoft’s top ten markets. Microsoft wants that to change. “We were probably late into search as a company but we’ve been late before and it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be late at the end. It’s a long game, it’s a big market, there’s room for more than one player,” Chris Dobson, general manager of digital marketing sales at MSN International, said in the interview.
“We’re starting from very modest beginnings in the Chinese market, but if we look five years out and if we haven’t graduated China to be in the top five of the world’s market, then we would have failed.”
Plenty of competitors want Microsoft to fail. China’s Internet users grow in number each year, offering the kind of profit expansion potential that can make balance sheets glow and investors go weak in the knees.
Yahoo and Google stand at the top of the list of search sites that want to keep Microsoft from ascending in China. Local players like Baidu, Sohu, and Sina Corp may not be able to keep up, but could benefit from being native companies.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
