"China's search engine market does not match the scale of its GDP; it is still in its preliminary stage of development. If there is a limit for the search engine market in China, it will not be late for us to discuss the issue in twenty years," said a prognosticating Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, at China's new economic forum held in Dong Guan yesterday.

The CCID, which is one of the largest top-tier information service conglomerates in China, has recently released its "Internet Guide 2007: China's Internet Report." The report shows that revenues from search engines has accounted for nearly one third of China's overall Internet advertising revenues in 2006. In addition, the search function has become Chinese netizens' most frequently used Internet service.

A hundred of China's leading manufacturing enterprises participated in the forum where Mr. Li gave his speech. In his speech, Li pointed out the "weakness" in the upgrading of China's manufacturing industry: that is, only 0.4% of Chinese enterprises have become adept at using information platforms like search engines. This situation has affected the competitiveness of Chinese enterprises.

"Baidu has 108,000 corporate customers and the average annual investment for every customer is RMB 30,000 (3,900 USD), while a foreign enterprise may invest a few hundred thousand dollars. There are 25,000,000 SMEs in China, only 0.4% of which use search marketing," said Li. "China's search market does not match our country's status. China's GDP has now become the fourth in the world. However, the search market may not be as large as one-tenth of the search market of Britain which is behind us in GDP. Therefore, China's Internet search market is still a very underdeveloped market," concluded Li.

Click for more photos