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Alibaba Group has joined with Microsoft to create a new Web-search site Etao. This news has been picked up in a number of US based magazines and I see that they are trying to position this news as ... the next Search Engine to challenge Baidu Inc.'s dominance of the Chinese search market.
I don't think so.
Etao is aimed at driving traffic to Alibaba's retail website, Taobao.com. This is quite a different intent and use of search than where Baidu plays and to be frank, it seems the "Etao challenges Baidu" angle as no more than an interest story. Others have and are playing in the search space here in China and yet we have not seen any eroding of the market share, in fact it has grown (read more). I would estimate that Baidu has around 70% market share at this time.
As background, the search results on Etao are displayed in several groups. Taobao listings, including images and product prices, appear first. Those are followed by links to related online forums. Next come informational websites and Web search results provided by Microsoft's Bing search engine.
So on the face of it, an interesting development in the world of Chinese search but not one I think will change the status quo in the short to mid term. However, there clearly, is a huge attraction to get into the search game, given revenue in China's online search market was valued at 4.62 billion yuan ($692 million) in the first half, up 45% from a year earlier (Analysys International).
Source: Wall Street Journal
I expect the current capibilities of Etao is just the first step in a broader search strategy and shortly we will see more leverage (both technically and commercially) from the recent investment Alibaba Group made in Sohu's - Sogou search business.
An interesting time ahead for the this sector.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Written on Wednesday, 13 October 2010 10:01 by Matt McDougall
