Global Marketing Google’s failure in China TABLE OF CONTENT Table of content2 Abstract3 Critical Analysis3 The key issues and the lessons5 Conclusion6 References7 Abstract It has been 9 years since Google entered China Market officially, and 5 years since Google established Google China. Despite having a brand value of an amazing $66. 4 billion, Google. cn still fails to dominate the search engine market in mainland China and faces stiff competition from bitter rival Baidu. In other words, Baidu’s market share in China is nearly 75 percent to Google China’s 25 percent.
The secret to Baidu’s success and Google’s failure is largely positioning. Chinese authorities blocked Google because it allowed through some pornographic search results but many of these same results were also available on Baidu. Moreover, the government allowed Baidu to operate illegal music search while Google was not. Baidu was also creating a social community that is a way of ensuring Baidu’s long-term dominance. Indeed, Baidu’s entire business strategy is tailored to Chinese governmental, legal, business, and social culture — and that is what has set it apart from Google.
Baidu’s market share could be more than 90 percent. Although Google might be one of the most well-known brand names in the world, most people outside big cities like Beijing and Shanghai have never heard of it. The combination of a great market strategy and government favoritism means that Baidu will likely not fall from the top. Google might be success almost everywhere else but that was not happen in China. Critical analysis The Internet has been seen in the West as the quintessential expression of the free exchange of ideas and information, untrammeled by government interference and increasingly global in reach.
But the Chinese government has shown that the Internet can be successfully filtered and controlled. Google’s mission, “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” has clashed with the age-old presumption of Chinese rulers of the need and responsibility to control. When it entered China in 2006, Google tried to fight the Chinese government at every step, announcing that it was fighting for the rights of the common Chinese consumer. When taken from a western perspective these actions are honorable.
They are not inclined to demand their rights from the government entity that brought them out of the Cultural Revolution. The government controls the Internet and appreciates loyal partners. Baidu understands that it operates under the good graces of the Chinese government, and continues to show it. Baidu offers a search engine formatted in a way much better suited to Chinese characters than Google’s. Chinese people search in their own language US companies have simply taken far too long a time to realize that Chinese people use the internet differently than their counterparts in other markets.
Recent research by the McKinsey consultancy suggests Chinese users spend most of their time online on entertainment, much of it playing online games, while Europeans and Americans are more focused on work-related uses. The fact is that Chinese internet users are younger, poorer and less educated than their counterparts in the west. On one of the most contentious issues for search engines , intellectual property rights and illegal downloading. The government and Baidu are on the same page as well. Baidu connects users with sites through which they can illegally obtain music.
It also allows users to search directly for and illicitly download MP3s. Google was slow to tackle one of Baidu’s main strengths in attracting user traffic , its free music download. Most of Chinese people cannot pronounce “Google” well. So Google China is called (Guge) in Chinese, to prevent misunderstanding. Besides pronunciation, there is also an issue in spelling. Most Chinese people have to remember the how to spell ‘Google’ when they want to search something on the search engine. On the other hand, Baidu uses Pinyin instead of English.
Hence, Baidu. com is easier to remember than Google. cn. Inability to control sensitive content. The Great Firewall is extremely sensitive when it comes to pornography contents. The reason of blocking Google International is that netizens in China can search pornography images via Google Images when the default setting of SafeSearch is off. In contrast, Baidu has a strong filter to sieve out any unsuitable content that displeasure the Chinese government. As a result, it’s almost impossible to search any sensitive content on Baidu.
Google failed because government would not care about its position when all of us have to face the laws. In China, consumers rely on blogs and other user-generated consumer reporting when deciding what to buy, mainly because they trust word of mouth much more than any blatant advertising campaign. So it should come as no surprise that they’re also very active participants, leaving more than twice the amount of comments their peers elsewhere post. The key issues and the lessons China is a complicated market, more so with the media industry.
The Chinese government retains far more control over media, the press, and the internet than any other economy at a similarly-developed level. Chinese internet users do not like to type, perhaps due to the fact that Mandarin has many thousands of characters. They navigate almost entirely by using the mouse. This may look cluttered and disorderly to an American, but it makes life easier for Chinese users. Google didn’t bother learning that typical Chinese Internet users spend most of their online time on entertainment as compared to Europeans and Americans, who use it more for work-related purposes.
Saying they are threatening to close down their China operations because of China cyberattacks and government censorship is ingenious. The government censorship excuse is weak because Internet censorship now is to a large part much less stringent than it was when they entered the China market Overall, Google’s failure in China because most of the issues that relate to politics and legal issues. The government always uses ICP Certificate to explain. ICP Certificate was first launched in 2003, with an aim to control various sensitive Internet content (especially pornography and protection of copyright).
ICP later became compulsory for all websites operating in China. Before 2005, Google did not have a valid ICP Certificate. According to the authorities, Google was operating “illegally” in China. Google should have read to gain an understanding of Chinese culture and history. Had it approached this situation with a more humble form of outrage, Google would have gained negotiating leverage and respect in a country where the government is not known to give it.
It could have used the arrows from the ineffective attack as ammunition to fire back at the Chinese government. Conclusion Even if Google actually did take the time to study up on the market it wanted so badly, the American corporation wouldn’t be able to understand its audience in the same way Chinese firms like Baidu do. Google’s threat to leave the China market was not made because of some higher moral calling but Google was hurting its brand’s image instead making one last attempt to generate interest in their China.
References Jordan, C. (2009, Sep 29). Where Google loses. Foreign policy. Retrieved from http://www. foreignpolicy. com Martin, J. (2010, Jan 16). No chance against China. Newsweek. Retrieved from http://www. newsweek. com Google should obey China’s laws, netizens say. (2010). Chinadaily . Retrieved from http://www. chinadaily. com. cn/opinion/2010-03/19/content_9616233. htm David, B. & Brad, S. ( 2010, Jan 15). China, where U. S internet companies often fail. The NewYork Times. Retrieved from http://www. nytimes. com.
