Google exit from China a predictable gift: Baidu chief

SAN FRANCISCO: The head of China's dominant Internet search engine predicted on Monday that Google wouldn't last in his country, calling the US technology firm's retreat from the mainland was a gift.

Baidu chairman Robin Li said that when Google launched its search service in China, his advice was that chief Eric Schmidt spend at least six months a year in that country to understand the market.

"Apparently, Eric did not take my advice," Li said during an unprecedented on-stage chat at a Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. "I knew that, eventually, he would hand me a gift and it happened."

Schmidt had his turn on the Summit stage earlier in the day, but did not discuss Baidu.

Baidu reported in October that its net profit more than doubled in the third quarter, as rival Google continued to lose market share following its public spat with Beijing over censorship.

Baidu has increased its dominance of the world's biggest online market at the expense of Google, which has seen its share dwindle throughout the year.

Baidu said its net profit soared 112.4 per cent year-on-year to 1.05 billion yuan ($157.89 million) in the third quarter.

Total revenue ballooned to 2.26 billion yuan, up 76.4 per cent from the same period last year, the company said.

China has 420 million web users, with 99 per cent of them using Baidu, Li said.

Baidu's share of the Chinese search engine market increased to 73 per cent in the third quarter from 70 per cent in the second quarter, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International.

Over the same period, Google's share shrank to 21.6 per cent from 24.2 per cent, Analysys said.

The US Internet titan had boasted a 31 per cent share in the first three months of the year, before its protracted tussle with the Chinese authorities.

In March, Google said it would no longer bow to government censors and effectively shut down its Chinese search engine, automatically re-routing mainland users to its uncensored site in Hong Kong.

The web giant has since tweaked the way it re-routes users in order to renew its business license in China, creating a new landing page with a link to the Hong Kong site, which users must click on themselves.