Baidu to focus on mobile web

The move comes only two weeks after China Mobile unveiled a deal to launch smartphones operating Android, produced by Baidu's rival Google.

According to reports from the Baidu World Conference, Baidu will look to strengthen mobile capabilities such as search and SNS for handsets, and will look to pre-install Baidu search programmes on phones manufactured by companies such as Nokia and Samsung that also have relationships with China Telecom and China Unicom.

Bruno Bensaid, founder of Mobile Monday Shanghai and managing director of Shanghaivest, says the battle to gain ground on mobile search in China is heating up, with Google, Baidu and other search players battling to customise their services for Chinese mobile consumers.

“There are 150 million WAP users in China so it’s approaching critical mass in terms of mobile internet for the moment, and now is the time when mobile players can start monetising this,” Bensaid said. “Mobile internet used to very much be entertainment-driven, whether it was accessing news, MP3s or pictures, but now it’s a more generic tool for search because mobile can be extremely local.”

According to research firm Analysys International, Baidu held 61.6 per cent of China’s search revenue share in the second quarter of 2009, with Google China on 29.1 per cent.

China’s mobile landscape dramatically intensified in January of this year  when the Government approved the construction of a series of 3G networks that would bring fast-connecting internet to the market for the first time, pitting China’s three main providers - China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom - against each other to received licences to operate on the TD-SCDMA, CDMA 2000 and WCDMA 3G standards.

In addition to its focus on mobile, Baidu announced the launch of its upgraded search engine called "One Box", programmed to suggest relevant applications, such as music and video services, in addition to text-exclusive matches.

The unveiled service comes as Baidu anticipates bolstered search revenues as soon as this quarter  from its new online advertising model launched to distinguish paid search ads from its organic search results.

The company launched the service in partial response to backlash  following reports that it included non-licensed medical websites among its search results.