After a month of delay, China’s top search engine Baidu finally launches its Japanese portal. By establishing a stronghold in the Japanese web scene, Baidu hopes to develop search products that compliment Japanese users’ habits and preferences.
With Baidu’s first attempt to establish its presence outside of China, the Chinese search giant hopes to achieve in Japan what it has achieved in China. That is doubling its market share against its closest rival Google, as well as its other competitor Yahoo.
Baidu Chairman and CEO, Robin Li said that the company is very excited to have finally entered the Japanese search market.
“With Baidu’s strengths in developing user-focused Chinese language search and the qualified team we have on the ground in Japan, and given the success we have already encountered after nearly one year of testing our beta site, we are confident that we can provide a high quality Japanese language search
engine,” says Li.
Masuda Jun, Vice President of Baidu’s Japanese subsidiary added that:
“Japan is one of the world’s most connected societies, and we have already seen positive reception from local users using our beta website.”
Baidu’s Japanese site will offer users web search, image search, video search and blog search services.
