03 January 2007
Based in southern China, Shenzhen Xunlei Network Technology Ltd has been tight-lipped on the prospect of any possible investment. But if Google's $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube is anything to go by, the world's leading search engine is preparing to expand in an already booming industry in the region. The Chinese company's website, Xunlei.com, hosts a popular peer-to-peer download accelerator that facilitates the transfer of large video files across the internet, installed on a reported 75 million PCs in China. Live since January 2004, Xunlei.com currently sits below Google.com and Google.cn in Alexa rankings as the thirteenth most popular website in China.
Internet users in China and Japan are certainly no strangers to YouTube. By investing in an existing Chinese company, Google could be aiming to minimise the impact of any government media censorship policy. Not long after Google's acquisition of YouTube, a Japanese Society media group pushed the company to remove and ban any unauthorised video uploads that violated Japanese copyright laws. By building a version of its video service tailored to Chinese and Japanese users, Google might be aiming to please a range of authorities - from the Chinese government's heavy web censorship policy to individual copyright groups - while at the same time aiming to secure a larger piece of the search engine pie in China.
On-demand entertainment is already a popular concept in China, and the country was one of the first to support high-speed mobile phone video downloads. Despite the nation's tight controls, the internet is thriving in China, with over 120 million registered users in 2006. Furthermore, 128 million individuals are predicted to subscribe to the burgeoning Pay TV market by 2010. It's clear that these figures, when combined with Google's existing track record in online video, indicate that the search engine giant is all too aware of the possibilities represented by an investment in this burgeoning market.
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Google hints towards a Chinese YouTube
Speculation is rife that Google could be investing in a Chinese peer-to-peer company, Xunlei.com, as soon as the end of January. This could hail the beginning of a relationship that would bring a Chinese version of YouTube, the ever popular video sharing website bought by Google last year, to the world.Based in southern China, Shenzhen Xunlei Network Technology Ltd has been tight-lipped on the prospect of any possible investment. But if Google's $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube is anything to go by, the world's leading search engine is preparing to expand in an already booming industry in the region. The Chinese company's website, Xunlei.com, hosts a popular peer-to-peer download accelerator that facilitates the transfer of large video files across the internet, installed on a reported 75 million PCs in China. Live since January 2004, Xunlei.com currently sits below Google.com and Google.cn in Alexa rankings as the thirteenth most popular website in China.
Internet users in China and Japan are certainly no strangers to YouTube. By investing in an existing Chinese company, Google could be aiming to minimise the impact of any government media censorship policy. Not long after Google's acquisition of YouTube, a Japanese Society media group pushed the company to remove and ban any unauthorised video uploads that violated Japanese copyright laws. By building a version of its video service tailored to Chinese and Japanese users, Google might be aiming to please a range of authorities - from the Chinese government's heavy web censorship policy to individual copyright groups - while at the same time aiming to secure a larger piece of the search engine pie in China.
On-demand entertainment is already a popular concept in China, and the country was one of the first to support high-speed mobile phone video downloads. Despite the nation's tight controls, the internet is thriving in China, with over 120 million registered users in 2006. Furthermore, 128 million individuals are predicted to subscribe to the burgeoning Pay TV market by 2010. It's clear that these figures, when combined with Google's existing track record in online video, indicate that the search engine giant is all too aware of the possibilities represented by an investment in this burgeoning market.
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