Baidu Owns Google In China

[caption id="attachment_354" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Arbitrary cultural differences present opportunities"][/caption] The China Perspective reports that the Chinese native search engine Baidu has taken a 65.8% market share, against Google's own 22% market share. In yet another blow to crystal ball gazers everywhere, Google's fortune tellers failed to realise their prediction of market domination within five years as depicted in the charts in 2003. According to The China Perspective article, Google is in fact losing market share and Baidu is gaining. Personally I think that too many people underestimate the value of being local and still buy in to the idea that the Internet is a wonderful device that simply scales businesses magically. At the end of the day, business needs to deliver what consumers want; and consumer demands and behaviours can change radically over geographic borders. The good news is that this leads to opportunities for those who seek them.