With more than 300 million Chinese internet users, China is the country with the largest population of internet users. The reason why many internet search engine companies wanted to penetrate the Chinese market is because the sheer size of the Chinese population will earn millions of dollars in revenue. Imagine surpassing the number of internet users in the technologically advanced United States? IT should not come as a surprise since the Chinese have been vying for various top spots in the international race.
Look at how Google is fighting to increase its shares in the internet search engine market. 31.3% is not bad for a foreign company like Google. Although the leading company, Chinese internet search engine Baidu, still has the upper hand in this market, foreign companies are confident that they will be able to get into the market in time. A little more research must be done in order to fully understand how the new market thinks.
Expansion in China is equated to expanding operations in the country where the world’s largest internet users can be found. There’s just too much potential that can be generated through doing business in China. And it will surely generate jobs that will help Chinese people ultimately.
Unfortunately, the strict control of the communist government of China is in conflict with the freedom that overseas companies would want to implement. The recent bad blood between Google and the Chinese government proves that there is still a strict and compelling force in this country that prevents even multinational companies from doing what they want or what they have to do.
Restraints and censorship on search engine queries and e-mail activities of peace campaigners are strictly discouraged by the government to the point of hacking Google’s complex algorithms in order to access these emails purportedly sent by Chinese rebels who want to seek help from international organizations.
But even though this kind of conflict is currently happening in the country, this must not discourage internet companies to expand their operations to this highly populated country. The goal here is to make as much significant business transactions that will benefit both their company, the people of China and the government of China. By doing so, you are contributing to their economic growth which is the cornerstone of all countries aiming to become first world countries.
Beating Baidu is out of the question-competition is good because it improves the quality of products in the marketplace. As for now, Baidu exists as the hallmark that Google and other internet companies must surpass. In the mean time, while they are still working on their strategies to a larger part of the population as clients, they must learn well from how Baidu provides the information Chinese internet users in China need.