IAC/Interactive Corp. Chief Executive Officer Barry Diller said Friday that a Chinese version of the Ask.com search engine may be launched within two years, and plans to invest 1 billion US dollars in a new Internet company in China.
Before IAC is ready to enter the highly competitive Internet search market in China, American search giants Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc., which have already entered the Chinese market, have performed only averagely, far behind Baidu.com Inc., a local search engine company.
Diller told reporters that the company would seek a partner to bring Ask.com into the Chinese market, possibly joining hands with a local newspaper or other media forms; this is the same strategy the company used to enter the British and other European markets.
Diller revealed that Ask.com's market share in the US search engine market was about 6%. Ask.com is an upgraded product of the Ask Jeeves search engine.