1st station of Baidu’s globalization: Japan
Baidu, chinese largest web search engine announced to launch Japanese search service next year. company said they have researched Japanese search technology for 6 months. because Japan has huge internet user base and Japanese language has high similarity with chinese, Baidu made the final entrance decision.
Accoring to the main 2 reasons Baidu held, I couldn't help worrying about their future. Just like several analysts pointed, Japan has huge market potential. however, the competition is also very intense. as for language similarity, indeed, there are many chinese words used in Japanese language. but the grammar of Japanese is very different with Chinese. that will definitely influence the search accuracy and result ranking. I don't know whether Baidu has a good solution for this. in addition, did Baidu make a thorough research on user behavior? why did Yahoo Japan beat Google? Baidu is called chinese Google. they have many common places. I think analyzing Yahoo Japan and Google will be very helpful for Baidu.
some analysts think globalization is wasting resources. I don't agree that. but if I were Robin Li, I will take different ways.
1) Developing new markets according to economic environment
what is means? from my point of view, new markets are the next hot places in the world economy. china and india are the good example. how to identify next hot places? company needs to pay close attention to macro economy trend. for instance, currently I think there is a good candidate, Vietnam. the country just became a member of WTO, and many international companies are seeking investment opportunities in this country. simultaneously, vietnam people and companies are eager to get outer information. under this situation, there are big demand on information searching. moreover, there is no giant rivals in this kind of market.
2) Entering big market with niche positioning
aiming to be an international company, Baidu has to enter big and mature market unavoidably. so I don't think entering Japan is a wrong strategy. but it's possible to design a more practical strategy. I suggest Baidu can choose a niche segment to enter. for example, Japanese are used to western companies' services. now Baidu comes. I am for sure they will be interested in what's the uniqueness of this chinese company. therefore, I will position Baidu as best search engine for Japanese information about China and Japanese in China! of course, there are many other potential niches for Baidu to pick. I really look forward to seeing Baidu's new action.
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