Towards the end of 2006, China's top Web search firm, Baidu, announced its intention to cross the Pacific Ocean and enter the Japanese search market in 2007, with sources claiming that it would launch its first overseas expansion as early as March. Now, having conducted more than six months worth of extensive research into the development of Japanese language search technology, Baidu - dubbed "China's Google" - have made their first foray into the international market by launching Baidu in Japan, its first regular service away from its home market.
Until recently, the Baidu website was a single-page notice which contained no links to any services; nor had it given any indication of when the Japanese service was likely to become live. News service agency Reuters reported that even though the word 'beta' has since been removed from the 'Baidu' logo, company officials could not immediately be reached to confirm the service had been launched. The new service includes features, such as a search bar for web page and image searches, as well as user help and advanced services.
The Beijing-based company had set up a Japanese subsidiary and had registered the domain-name for its portal in Japanese, which officials in Japan say has now been transferred to Baidu.
The move overseas appears to show that Baidu is looking to enter into the global web search arena which is currently dominated by Google, Yahoo! and MSN. In fact, Baidu chairman, Robin Li has also expressed an interest in developing Korean-language search services. Both Google and Yahoo! already operate web search services in Japanese and Korean.
China holds the second largest internet market after the United States and is home to around 137 million web users. Baidu currently holds more than 62 per cent of the Chinese search market, with Google accounting for around 23 per cent - making Baidu the largest search engine in the country. Furthermore, web traffic ranker Alexa recently reported that Baidu was the fourth most-visited site in the world.
The company is now looking to become a household name across the globe. In fact, an internet industry source claims that, rather than being the final stop in Baidu's overseas expansion, Japan will be the first-step into the international market.
