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Google in China
A should I stay or should I go dilemma
BUEC 646: The Global Business Environment Case Study: Google in China Marion Desmazires December 2nd, 2013
Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
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http://www.google.com/about/company/ ComScore Inc (June 2013). Retrieved from http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/ 3 Michael Kan (June 2013). China now has 591M Internet users. Computer World. 4 Willis Wee (December 2010). Chinas Internet Growth, Statistics and Online Behavior. Tech In Asia. 5 Jim Hu (November 2003). Yahoo buys Chinese software firm. CNET News. 6 Janis Mara (June 2004). Yahoo! Launches Yisou. ClickZ.com.
Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
shows that Baidus market share went from 10.34% in 2003 to 25 .96% in 2005, dangerously catching up with Yahoo (26.92%) [Exhibit 4]. Googles market share also increased during this period (3.45% to 14.42%) but the American company still ranked third in revenue.
The Economist. (September 19, 2002). China and the Internet: The search goes on. China Daily (August 30, 2005). Baidu Gains Search Engine Market Share. 9 Andrew Orlowski (June 23, 2006). Google sheds China investment. The Register. 10 iResearch (November 2009). 2005 China Search Engine Market Report. 11 Lifang Zhang, Minghong Zhang, (2008) "Market structure of China's network industry", Journal of Chinese Economic and Foreign Trade Studies, Vol. 1 Iss: 1, pp.75 87.
Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
human rights, the movement for Free Tibet or the Dalai Lama, the independence of Taiwan, the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989, and the Falun Gong meditation technique. 12
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Linda Trevino (2012). Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk about How to Do It Right, 5th edition. Wiley. The Economist (January 26, 2006). Google: Searching for integrity. 14 The Economist (January 26, 2006). Search engines: Here be dragons. 15 BBC News (January 25, 2006). Google censors itself for China. 16 Company overview, Google.com: http://www.google.com/about/company/
Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
difference," stated Google co-founder Sergey Brin17. Wisely, Google did not open its Gmail service in China because it did not want to jeopardize the privacy of its users as the Chinese government had previously requested the identity of Yahoo email-account holders.
Still, Google struggles facing a harsh competition from Baidu and government backlash
Even with this local strategy, Googles market share in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, the three largest Chinese cities, went down 8 percentage points to 25.3% in 2006 according to the China Internet Marketing Network Information Center. Meanwhile, Baidus market share made a giant leap to 62.1%.18 Baidu was definitely the first search operator of choice for most Chinese internet users. According to an iResearch report published in February 2007, Baidus total revenues increased by 162.5% in one year and amounted to RMB 837.8 million in December 2006, proving its growing brand recognition.19 On the other hand, Googles earnings missed its Q2 2007 estimates. You might wonder if George Reyes, chief financial officer, regretted or tried to justify the companys heavy investment in China when he told CNN Money: We are taking a careful look at investments and how we allocate resources around the world20. To add to Googles challenges, the Chinese government was throwing spanners in the works. In 2009, Beijing blocked YouTube, the video-sharing platform acquired by Google in 2006, because it was featuring footage showing Chinese police beating Tibetan protestors21. As a hint that Chinese managers were pushed over the edge by the hostile battle with the Beijing government, the head of Google China, US-raised Kai-Fu Lee, resigned unexpectedly in September 2009 and rekindled the debate on censorship in China. Indeed, Lee stated in his blog that he wanted to be "actively involved in the work and to have full control over it"22. This departure happened a couple of months after revived attacks against Google from state censors, although Google had carefully filtered results in June 2009, for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
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Ted Bridis (June 6, 2006). Google compromised its principles in China, founder says. USA Today. Gemme van Hasselt (September 21, 2006). Google Losing Market Share in China. Search Engine Journal. 19 iResearch China (February 15, 2007). Baidu Posts Quarterly Search Engine Revenue Increase. 20 Paul R. La Monica (July 19, 2007). Google is human, earnings miss. CNN Money. 21 Tania Branigan (March 25, 2009). China blocks YouTube. The Guardian. 22 Laura Donnelly, Peter Foster and Amanda Andrews (September 5, 2009). China Google boss departure reignites debate over censorship. The Telegraph.
Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
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Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora accessed on November 26. 2013. David Drummond (January 12, 2010). A new approach to China. Google official blog. 25 Reuters (March 22, 2010). Chinese media launches new attack on Google.
Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
On the other hand, Baidu earned 71.6% of the revenues of the Chinese online search market, an industry that kept increasing steadily and more than doubled between Q2 2010 (RMB 2.69 billion) and Q3 2011 (RMB 5.51 billion) [Exhibit 6]26. Nevertheless, Google Chinas revenue in 2009 only amounted to $300 million, a small portion of its $22 billion in global sales. Additionally, few people in Wall Street feared that Google would suffer financially if it closed its Chinese portal 27. Therefore, in March 2010, when Google decided to redirect Chinese users to an unrestricted Hong-Kong based website, its shares did not drop much [Exhibit 7].
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iResearch Inc (December 2010). Revenue Share of Top Chinese Online Search Engines.
Miguel Helft (January 14, 2010). For Google, a Threat to China With Little Revenue at Stake. The New York Times. BBC News (March 23, 2010). China condemns decision by Google to lift censorship. 29 Stan Schroeder (July 9, 2010). China Renews Google's ICP License. 30 China Internet Watch (September 23, 2013). Chinas 3rd and 4th Largest Search Engine Joining Forces.
Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
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Josh Halliday (2013). Google's dropped anti-censorship warning marks quiet defeat in China. The Guardian. The Economist (March 11, 2013). Censorship in China Shifting dynamics of control. 33 Charlie Smith (November 22, 2013). Google could end China's web censorship in 10 days. The Guardian. 34 W. Chan Kim and Rene Mauborgne (2004). Blue Ocean Strategy. Harvard Business Review.
Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
Appendices
Exhibit 1: Internet users distributed by world regions in Q2 2012
Source: The Nielsen Company (June 2010). Internet users in China. Retrieved from http://www.techinasia.com/china-internet-growth-and-online-behavior/
Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
Source: Willis Wee (2010). Chinas Internet Growth, Statistics and Online Behavior. Tech In Asia.
Exhibit 4: Income and market share of internet search engine from 2003-2005
Source: Lifang Zhang, Minghong Zhang, (2008) "Market structure of China's network industry", Journal of Chinese Economic and Foreign Trade Studies, Vol. 1 Iss: 1, pp.75 87. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1714209&show=html
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Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
Exhibit 5: Revenue Share of Top Chinese Online Search Engines (FY 2010)
Source: iResearch Inc (December 2010). Revenue Share of Top Chinese Online Search Engines. Retrieved from http://www.techinasia.com/baidu-china-revenue/
Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
Exhibit 7: Evolution of Google Inc. stocks (NASDAQ:GOOG) between January and March 2010
Source: IResearch Inc. (November 2011). China Search Engine Market Share Q3 2011. Retrieved from http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/1304/search-engine-q3-2011/ 12
Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
Source: EnfoDesk (2012). Chinese Search Engine Market Share [by Revenue] in 2012. Retrieved from http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/category/search-engine/.
Source: China Internet Watch (October 2013). China Search Engine Market Share by Revenue in Q3 2013 (channel revenue included). Retrieved from http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/4371/search-enginemarket-update-q3-2013/
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Marion Desmazires BUEC 646 Case Study: Google in China December 2nd, 2013
Exhibit 11: China Search Engine Market Share by Visits in Q3 2012 Q1 2013
Source: EnfoDesk (March 2013). China Search Engine Market Share by Visits in Q1 2013. Retrieved from http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/2192/search-engine-market-share-2013q1/
Exhibit 12: China Search Engine Market Scale from Q3 2011 Q3 2013
Source: EnfoDesk (October 2013). China Search Engine Market Scale from Q3 2011-Q3 2013. Retrieved from http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/4371/search-engine-market-update-q3-2013/ 14