Baidu Announces Entry into Japanese Search Market in 2007

Baidu officially announced the launch of its international strategy. Robin Li, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Baidu, revealed that Baidu intends to enter the Japanese search market in 2007, competing with giants like Google and Yahoo overseas.

Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, disclosed that the timetable for entering Japan is still being formulated, but the company has already begun hiring Japanese employees and is in the process of establishing a branch in Tokyo. Baidu has been making substantial preparations for entering the Japanese market for over half a year, including web crawling in Japanese. At an appropriate time next year, Baidu will officially release its Japanese search service. It is reported that after Japan, Baidu will also enter other markets in Asia, though Li refused to disclose details.

By entering the world's second-largest economy, Baidu will gain more leverage to compete with Yahoo and Google. Although Baidu has consistently held a leading position in the Chinese search market, the local advertising market is relatively small. Li estimated that the annual search revenue of the Japanese market, currently dominated by Yahoo and Google, is about $1 billion, which is 5-6 times larger than the Chinese market.

"We have carefully studied the Japanese market," said Robin Li, "It is mainly controlled by two competitors we are very familiar with. We believe we can do better."