Print
Email to Friends
Comment (China Mobile and Google earlier this month signed a joint venture in setting up an online search technology for China Mobile, China's biggest mobile phone operator with over 300 million subscribers. The mobile Web search services, which will feature news, ringtones, videos and games, are expected to be launched in early 2007.
"We are delighted to be providing China Mobile users with mobile and internet search services via our cooperation with Google," said Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile. "Mobile search will help users access the information they need more easily and quickly. This is an important move for China Mobile's transformation into a mobile information expert." Basically, Google will power the search engine for China Mobile's WAP portal "Monternet" to find content like "sports and entertainment news, ringtones, games, images, videos and novels."
While still in its early stages, mobile Web search is seen as an important market because of the increasing capabilities of mobile phones and their widespread use. Google is going after mobile search around the world. In Asia Google has partnered with Japanese carriers NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, and in South Korean with SK Telecom. And in Europe Google has teamed with Telefonica, Vodafone and T-Mobile EU. Currently with about 1/3 the number of the users of Baidu, the leading search engine in China, Google has been looking for ways to expand their China market share.
Earlier this month, Google also announced a partnership with Xunlei, China's allegedly largest software download engine, for use of the Google search engine and for co-marketing and product cooperation. Google did not disclose the size of its investment in the website Xunlei.com, but people close to the companies said Google paid about $5 million for a 4-percent stake in the company.
Google has signed similar deals with other mobile operators, but China Mobile is its biggest catch. That mobile search service has been in testing since last December and should go live early this year.
