Google Inc has officially launched mobile phone-based search
services in China, the biggest market in the world which has more
than 500 million handset users, the search giant said yesterday in
a statement.
Google China's mobile search services are based on keyword
search through short message service and they cover stock
information, weather forecasts, train information and functions
such as calculator, foreign currency rate and language
translation.
This was another move for Google to tap into the wireless market
from the Internet, especially in China.
"The service is totally free now and users are only required to
pay for the short message fee to carriers," Google said in a
statement.
But the venture has been met with skepticism by some IT experts,
who say the technology has already been tested on the Chinese
market.
China-based firms, including Shanghai-based mInfo Inc, Chongqing
Yicha, Uucun and Cgogo, have been launching mobile search services
since 2004.
In 2010, China's mobile search user base is expected to hit 200
million compared with 61 million this year, according to IT
consulting firm iResearch Inc. Google is just starting to fully
understand the logistics of delivering mobile searches in China and
it is suspected that its move into the Chinese market will
fail.
Alvin Wang Graylin, chief executive of mInfo, said many handset
users in China didn't have computer-based search experience.
"This is just going to show that once again in the China market,
big US corporations can't compete well against local home-grown
companies, such as Baidu vs Google or Taobao vs eBay," Graylin said
during an interview yesterday.
(Shanghai Daily November 21, 2007)
