Don’t call it a comeback, but Google might actually be gaining a lot of ground in the Asian market very soon. Yes, the make up of search engine usage in the Far East (the focus of Reform’s International Search Review series so far) – where only a few months ago Google left China, Yahoo! dominated in Japan and few people in Korea even used Google at any point – has changed drastically.
Yahoo! Japan has about a 57% share of the market there, while Google’s share is just over 35%; Microsoft has a share of about 3%. Yahoo! and Bing are merging results elsewhere, but Yahoo! Japan, being to some extent independently owned (unlike in other markets, the Yahoo! Japan branch is actually majority owned by Softbank) has opted to go with Google instead of Bing for its results on both the SEO and PPC side. Microsoft quickly protested, citing that Google will suddenly have close to a 95% share of the 3rd largest search market after the US & China, thus monopolising it in a similar way to Microsoft’s dominance in the PC market over the years.
As for China, Google is back to work in the market that they shocked many people by threatening to leave earlier this year. Only a couple months ago, Baidu was pulling away with a clear lead in one of the fastest growing markets (and potentially largest) in the world.
But earlier this month, Google managed to work out a deal where operations in China could resume through 2012, and the google.cn domain no longer redirected to Hong Kong. But the relationship has been short lived, as while http://www.google.cn/ is back, trying a query as of July 30th takes you to Hong Kong once more. So, the comeback is still a work in progress there. In fact, you can take a quick look at day to day status via http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en
Google has also cut ties with two of the twenty five “authorized advertising agents” in China, which account for most of the paid search spend within China.
Moving over to Korea, where Google’s market share is even lower (under 5%), they’ve worked on a new strategy – going away from search and moving towards mobile and even TV. Working on partnerships with local companies, Google has shown progress in the mobile market there (which rivals such as Naver were late to enter) and are working with companies such as LG and Samsung on integrating search with other forms of media, such as TV, where Samsung is potentially working on launching a Google TV that would run on Google’s Android Operating System.
Still, contrary to what some people felt a few months ago, Google hasn’t given up on Asia yet, and the search market in countries like China, Japan and Korea is still ready for new competition. Find out more about these markets and more via our market research pieces:
Search Marketing in India – Coming Soon.
Blog post by Niall Madden, SEO Director of Reform