BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- Google Inc. (GOOG) remains in second place in key Asian markets, most notably China, and sees a long struggle to gain market share, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Google president of Asia Pacific and Latin America operations, said in a meeting with analystsThursday.
"My hope is to gain market share, but in China it's going to take a while. We've prepared ourselves for a longer battle," she said.
In China and South Korea, Google lags behind local search engines Baidu.com Inc (BIDU). and Naver, which is operated by NHN Corp. (03520.KQ). In Japan it lags behind Yahoo Japan Corp. (4689.TO), which is 40%-owned by Japan wireless operator Softbank Corp. (9984.TO).
In China, Cassidy said Google has caught up on search quality with Baidu. Many Chinese users prefer the local search engine for Chinese-language searches, but Cassidy said that blind tests find greater user satisfaction with Google.
In August, Google launched an online music search function that provides free downloads of music licensed by record companies and supported by advertising.
The service is intended to compete with Baidu's hugely popular music search. Baidu said in a statement, citing data from Internet traffic monitor Alexa.com, that music searches account for only 6% of its traffic.
Baidu held a commanding 63.4% of China's search-engine revenue in the third quarter, compared with Google's 27.8%, according to research firm Analysys International.
In South Korea, Google lags behind Naver largely due to some unique characteristics of the market, Cassidy said.
"Korea is our toughest market world-wide," she said.
Google accounts for just 2.4% of Korean Internet searches, far behind Naver's 74% and Daum Communications Corp. (035720.KQ) with 15.3%, according to research firm KoreanClick.
Around 70% of Korean web searches are through Naver's "knowledge search" function, Cassidy said, which allows Internet users to edit search results through a question-and-answer format in a direct approach to improve relevancy.
Cassidy said she believes Google will make strides in Korea as the Internet "opens up" and becomes more like web search markets in the rest of the world.
-By Aaron Back, Dow Jones Newswires; (8610) 6588-5848; aaron.back@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 13, 2008 07:32 ET (12:32 GMT)

Publié le 13 novembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones