Survey: Google Strong in China

A recent survey of Chinese Internet users by Keynote Systems, a firm that studies consumer data for online companies, found that Google is in a surprisingly strong position to overturn domestic rival Baidu.com as the King of Search in China, the Associated Press reports.

Baidu is extremely popular in China, and the survey found it’s the preferred method of search for 48 percent of users. However, Google took the first place rank in 11 of the 13 categories in the survey. 

There were 1,200 respondents—all Internet users, 70 percent of which were from urban centers, the other 30 percent from other areas—and the survey covered Chinese-language search engines run by Google, Baidu, and Alibaba.com, among others.

Google has just recently wet its beak in the China, but the potential is clear.  The country is the second largest Internet market in the world behind the U.S, with more than 111 million people online by year-end 2005.

–Al Sacco