“Google aspires to become the search market leader in China within the next five years and it is hiring the workforce to back up that desire.”
Google Inc., chasing China-based search engine Baidu.com Inc., which holds 60% of the search engine market in that country, expects to process more local Web queries through mobile phones than computers by 2011, aided by an alliance with the nation’s largest wireless carrier.
Google, which hopes to increase its staff in China by one-third in 2008, and gain more market share by increasing promotional spending, a senior company executive said on Saturday.
Lee Kai-fu, Google’s global vice president and president in Greater China region told sources that the Silicon Valley Company plans to add 30 percent, or 200 people, in 2008 to its existing workforce of 600 to its Chinese operations.
The new jobs will be mainly in the field of technology and sales and marketing departments and 50% of the new jobs will go to new fresh graduates, according to Lee.
Lee added that the company will retain that pace of hiring over the next three to five years, in an attempt to overtake Baidu.com as the leading search provider in that country. He said that the added employees will be focused on improving advertising click rates.
Google, the most liked places to work among recent graduates, has suddenly curtailed hiring. The company has recruited around 800 new employees worldwide in each of the past two quarters, excluding acquisitions, half the rate of a year ago.
Google, the second largest Web search service provider in China besides Baidu.com Inc., will also boost promotional spending for its products such as Google Maps and its e-mail service called Gmail, Lee said.
“You will not see a Google advertisement on TV but you will see more and more promotions and advertisements about Google’s products at Chinese Web sites,” Lee said, describing how Google plans to rely on search ads instead of conventional marketing.
Baidu accounted for 60 percent of China’s market for search- based online advertising sales in the fourth quarter, compared with 58 percent a year earlier, according to Beijing-based Analysys International. Google’s market share rose to 26 percent from 17 percent, the researcher said.
“Google has looked for newer avenues due to the strength of Baidu’s position on the Internet side,” said Jim W. Oberweis, president of Oberweis Asset Management Inc. in Lisle, Illinois, which manages $1.5 billion, including Baidu shares. “Both Internet-based searches as well as mobile search are large potential markets,” said Oberweis.
Google as well seeking to strike more profit-sharing partnerships with Web site operators along the lines of one it already has with Chinese Internet media site Sina.com for news, advertising and search services, added Lee.
The objective is for Google to increase its own online advertising revenue in China, where millions of young Chinese people are rapidly adopting Internet shopping, Lee said.
“Advertising is our core revenue in China, just like anywhere else for Google,” he said. “I believe online advertising in China has very big market potential.”
China has viewed U.S. tech ventures from Microsoft to Hewlett-Packard come into the country and dominate market share. The capital from those attempts makes it way back to the U.S.
All of the sweat may perhaps not help. The Chinese might choose to use the services of a company that was founded in their own country and where the search technology was originally based on their language.
“Baidu is among the few Chinese tech companies that has an enormous lead over its Western competition. Many people there prefer it that way.”