Chinese Search Market to Consolidate

From Xinhua: Search market to consolidate

"Search engine service providers launched a new round of attacks in the fiercely competing market yesterday - moves which could close the final stage of consolidations.

Baidu.com, the country's biggest search engine service provider, on Thursday held a Most Searched Brand and Entreprenuer award with Rupert Hoogewerf, CEO of EuroMoney China, trying to boost its influence among business leaders and young people.

Zhongsou.com, another major player in the market, also released its desktop search software NetPig 3.0 version on Thursday.

The Chinese Internet portal Sohu.com also upgraded its search engine website Sougou.com on February 25 - and vowed to become the leading search engine service provider in the country.

The US giant Yahoo!'s Chinese operation also said it would aim to become the biggest player in two years.

Henry Yang, president of the Internet industry research company Shanghai iResearch Co Ltd, believed the moves and remarks of companies like Baidu, Zhongsou, Sohu, and Yahoo! China reflect the intensity of the competition in the search engine market, which is almost fully consolidated. ... Baidu, Google and search services by Yahoo! China were the top three most popular search engines in 2004 with almost 85 per cent of the usage.... Yang pointed out that the technical barriers to the business are already quite high and the positions of a few major players are quite established, so small and medium players are facing mounting difficulties." Read more