China, the country with the most Internet users has set sight to launch a government controlled search engine. The project will be a joint effort between state-owned China Mobile, China’s largest telco, and Xinhua, the official state-run news agency.
The objectives of this project are apparent as China looks to extend its control over the Internet and also to cash in on the rapidly growing Internet population, typically in the mobile realm.
With 420 million Internet users and more than 600 million mobile phone accounts, the Chinese search market looks extremely lucrative and it’s still growing at break neck speed.
The current major players remain to be Baidu and Google. According to Analysys International, a research firm in Beijing, Google’s market share in China fell from 30.9 percent in the first quarter to 24.2 percent in the three months ending June 30. On the other hand, Baidu’s share rose from 64 percent to 70 percent.
Although it is uncertain how this new search engine would differ from Baidu and Google, it is certainly a news marketers would want to keep under their radar.
Would this rollout be positive or negative for marketers? How would this initiative impact the way marketers advertise on search engines? And would the Chinese government continue to rollout other state-run digital properties?
These are just some concerning questions on China’s digital media and advertising landscape. Stay tuned.
[Source: The New York Times, Image credit TimYang]
