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Google Taps into China's E-commerce Search MarketBEIJING, Jun 12, 2009 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) -- Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) is casting its eyes on the booming Chinese e-commerce search market after successfully marching into the music search market in March. On June 11, Google China announced that it rolled out a beta version of a shopping search channel, tapping into the fast-paced online shopping market. The product search channel, available on the Google China website homepage, will enable users to get information about a wide range of products quickly and conveniently. The newborn search channel will classify the searched products according to their different models after getting information about the products in want. Users will get access to the information about price, buyer comments, and search parameters for products available on well-received business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) sites. Notably, users can get access to the most-searched products once they log onto google.cn/products, the homepage. As a high flier in the global online search market, Google, ever since its birth, has been committed to refreshing searchers' experience in information search by integrating various information in the world, said Yang Wenluo (transliterated), head for Google China Engineering Institute. Market observers say the Google-branded product search service will pose a great threat to gouwu.youdao.com, a similar product that Chinese Internet giant NetEase.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTES)'s search site Youdao.com launched earlier this January. The Youdao-tagged platform does not cover C2C search service. The Google platform gives users several options by providing linkages to the popular e-commerce sites like Taobao.com, Paipai.com, Joyo.cn, and Dangdang.com, according to Yang. The newly-launched service is the US-based online search heavyweight's latest push into China, a market dominated by its rival Baidu, Inc. (Nasdaq: BIDU) , pointed out market observers. The nascent product will give a blow to Baidu, which launched Youa.baidu, an online shopping platform, according to a market observer. On March 30, Google launched free music search service in China, a move widely considered to snatch a market share from the Chinese-language search giant. Baidu possessed a nearly 75% share of the Chinese online search market in 2008, far more than a 20% held by Google, according to a report unveiled by Analysys International, a leading advisor about technology, media and telecom (TMT) industries in the country. (USD 1 = CNY 8.63) Source: www.enet.com.cn (June 12, 2009) |