Baidu becomes Japan's fourth most popular search engine

Baidu.jp, the Japanese branch of the Chinese top search engine Baidu.com, Inc. becomes the national fourth largest independent search engine in terms of page view (PV) volume.

Initiated just this year on January 23, 2008, Baidu.jp was Baidu's first overseas site. In the first month of its operations, it saw an increased PV volume. It also offered more time and web pages for the netizens than any of its competitors in Japan.

Baidu, which holds a 70% market share in China, had revamped its top page (www.baidu.jp) and expanded its Japanese language services to include blog searches in its quest to access the world's second-largest economy.

Baidu said it plans to expand the business of the web site and in the meantime, employ local people to make it cater to the Japanese consumer to a larger extent.

Expansion plans include partnering Japanese mobile phone carriers to offer mobile-based searches. It is also considering entering Japan's consumer e-commerce market, which would involve creating a direct sales team.

About 70% of Japan's web surfers use two or more search engines, and Baidu had said earlier that it will aim to become the second search engine users turn to though no further details were furnished.