Google.China to start massive marketing push

Sept. 21, Sina Tech report- President of Google China, Kai-fu Lee said last night, Google is planning a massive market promotion in the next few months. The move is aiming to attracting more users to try Google search and other Google products. So far, Google has been steadfastly refused to initiate any marketing activities.

Kai-Fu Lee made the remarks while participating the advisory forum organized by CIC consulting. He indicate that the marketing push aims to increase user traffic, to guide and suggest users to tryout Google products.

"Google has not done any promotion so far. However, there are many beginner users in China and there are also other branded search engines." He implied that the special situation in China makes marketing necessary. But he also emphasized that it would not be a simple marketing move for Google brand.

Kai-Fu Lee's remarks may indicate that Google's localization effort is going smoothly and their confidence about the quality of Google's Chinese search is high.

Kai-Fu Lee said that, internal tracking data indicated that Google's quality of Chinese search continues to go up and already has gap with other search engines. "The gap with other search engines is getting bigger." Lee said. If more users are willing to try Google, he's confident that they will be converted to Google users.

From just released survey results by CIC consulting, 23% internet users in China have Google as first choice search engine. However, Google's main competitor Baidu had a huge lead with 69.5%.

Google dominated in the major search markets such as the US but has met major resistance in China. In the last two years, Google has made major push in China but the progress has been slow. And it has forced Google to try it differently by making localizing efforts to win Chinese users. Besides making special Guge.com site for China, Google also started collaboration efforts with Xunlei, 265.com, China Mobile as well as Sina to attract more search traffic.

But Lee also refused to comment on future market share. He thinks though Google's Chinese search is ahead of competitors', it will take time for users to pick Google as "first choice". "it's hard to predict the actual rate of market share gains" he said.