It’s not apples to apples. But, Baidu is the “Google” of China. And Google hates that. Despite their intentional efforts to grab the lead in this fast-developing market, Google has fallen to third in the online ad market, to competitor Alibaba.
Google actually lost 2 percentage points of their market share in the past quarter, down to 8.9%, and well behind Baidu’s market lead of 30.1%. Now these numbers only apply to the online advertising world. But in the search market, Google took a hit as well, falling 3 points to 21.6% while Baidu increased their huge market lead to 73%.
Google knows how big of a market China not only is, but will continue to be. And they can’t give up. But after trying so hard to play by China’s authoritarian rules, perhaps at the expense of their integrity, this news at the very least, has to be frustrating.