Following last week's speculation that Baidu.com would expand their reach to the Europe, a rumour that was soon quashed by the Chinese search engine, Google appear to be hitting back by intensifying their efforts in the traditionally Baidu dominated Chinese market. According to Bloomberg.com, Google have just announced their latest partnership with Sina Corp, owner of China's largest web portal. The alliance is expected to provide Google with a much needed boost in China's search industry - which, incidentally, is the second largest in the world and one in which Google currently trail behind Baidu's 57 per cent search market share with an estimated 19 per cent share.
The teaming up of the world's most popular internet search engine and China's biggest web portal is designed to create a winning partnership in internet search and online advertising. The move will provide Google with a strong foothold in China, where online search is expected to be worth $587 million by the end of this decade.
Through the partnership, Google will roll out their highly successful PPC program AdWords, enabling advertisers to display text and image ads alongside relevant online search results. By enabling Google to develop a more localised paid search tool for China, industry experts are anticipating the search engine giant will begin to close the gap on Baidu.com.
Hong Kong-based analyst at JPMorgan, Dick Wei, stated:
"The increased traffic and branding from the Sina-Google tie-up will make Google more localized and may help the two companies regain market share from Baidu.''
The Google-Sina alliance follows last year's speculation that Google intended to purchase the Beijing based portal Sina. The Chief Executive Officer at Google's Shanghai-based operation, Charles Chao, commented:
"We believe this partnership will allow us to explore more opportunities for cooperation in the future."
