Microsoft announces Bing search deal with China’s Baidu

By Tom Warren, on 4th Jul 11 10:04 am with 21 Comments

Bing China

Microsoft announced a new search deal with China’s Baidu search engine on Monday.

The software giant’s Bing search engine will power English results on Baidu. Reuters reports that the partnership will allow English search queries to automatically launch Bing which will parse the results into Baidu’s pages. Microsoft and Baidu had previously been rumored to announce the deal as early as May. The partnership will give Microsoft better access to China’s internet users, estimated at 450 million.

Baidu controls the search engine market in China after Google largely dropped out of the region following a number of Gmail cyber attacks in late 2009. Baidu currently dominates the Chinese search engine market with 75.8% market share. Google China holds 19.2%, leaving just 5% for other search engines like Bing. Microsoft’s Bing search engine has been making significant gains in the U.S. market recently. Bing now accounts for 14% of all U.S. searches.

Baidu and Microsoft entered into a similar strategic partnership in 2006. The previous agreement centred around Baidu’s paid search listings, allowing them to appear on the search results pages of Chinese versions of Microsoft web sites like MSN and Live Search (now Bing).

  • eric

    Bing has just 14%? I saw somewhere that it has 30% of the share….  what is the correct number?

    • http://www.twitter.com/brammie2118 Brammie2118

      Bing itself has 14%, but it also powers Yahoo! giving it more marketshare.

    • http://www.twitter.com/brammie2118 Brammie2118

      Bing itself has 14%, but it also powers Yahoo! giving it more marketshare.

    • Anonymous

      Bing has over 30% in the U.S. It has less outside the U.S.  But Bing’s market share has been growing slowly and steadily.

  • GP007

    This could be huge for Bing and really help them one up Google in a huge and growing market like China.  Nice job MS!   Now to bring more of Bings features outside the US and really put the pressure on.

    • Anonymous

      Are you crazy? You support and hype a criminal company with terrifying monopolistic behaviour !!?? Whats going on? Do you support Monsanto or North Korea as well ?

    • Anonymous

      What a lost soul, you read too much of Walt Mossberg

    • Anonymous

      No, i am watching Microsoft, Intel and Co. for many of years now. You can find dozens of blogs and websites, which are dealing with the behaviour of  monopolistic companies. Just try http://www.groklaw.com or use Google Search ^^ 
      You might are just some of the many absolutely sad ignoramus humans which dont dare to open there mind and question their own thinking !  And i dont have a soul anyways !!!!

    • Anonymous

      “monopolistic behaviour”? and if thats true… is that bad?….
      the most *monopolistic* company i know its Autodesk. and i cant blame on them, they have the money and resources to make their deals and adquisitions. and they want money, they want to compete in every single area they can as Microsoft does. but if people dont get their products they wouldn’t be that, so blame people for getting windows and office or well maya 3dsmax softimage.

      and honestly, why do you care so much about it? stop watching those companys and use whatever you want.
      and google is NOT better than microsoft, but since i dont like google (specially when i see they copy from other products and companys) but i like microsoft i get MS products, SO for us who use BING search, its good they can make this deal and get marketshare.

      so if supporting what you call monopolistic companys its being crazy, then im crazy. china is a single-party state just as North korea, so i dont see nothing bad on support/like them. whats next you will say MS is evil and use mind control? or say lot of stuff like if people didn’t have a choice of buying whatever they want.

    • alexh2o

      If you genuinely believe ANY company has interests above and beyond making money, more specifically, maximising shareholder value, then you need to re-evaluate your thinking!

      There is no difference between Microsoft, Apple or Google. They all want your money!

      The distinction is that this is simply capitalism. It does not make these companies “evil”. There is no ulterior motive – monopolistic behaviour is simply a means to further profits.

      A company may appear to be “nice”, and give things away for free, but it’s just a form of loss leading.

      Once you accept this, you’ll see that fanboism is idiotic. You will be free to pick and choose the products and services that best suit you. You wont be tied to any one company/ecosystem.

      (p.s. Just because your Western ideology has decided your way is correct and everyone else is wrong, does not mean the Chinese/North Korean way of doing things is wrong! The tone you use clearly shows a very blinkered view with little to no understanding of different cultures and people.)

    • Anonymous

      Your mother should be bitch slapped for giving birth to a retarded a$$clown like you. Microsoft is not monopolistic. They might have had anti-competitive practices in the past, but no longer. Yes, I do support them.

      As for Google, they’re without doubt the most vile, disgusting company ever. They collect private user data, and are currently under investigation in the U.S. and the EU right this very moment. The day Microsoft and Apple can drive a stake through their heart, is a day I will celebrate. So to hell with Google.

    • Anonymous

      @last three commends: your so wrong and just bullshitting! But im too tired too argue against dummy arguments. Google gives software and services for free, supports open standards, opensource, foreign communities ect. So please stop bullshitting. Microsoft was sued dozens of times cause of monopolistic behaviour and every intelligent men will say the same. Thats bad for the economy, for inventions, for the customers, crazy M$-Fanboys included. You all just dont get it! I feel with you and just wondering what else your cannot see and recognize ….

    • Chinaasshat

      Maybe you noticed that Google is under investigation for monopolistic actions as well? Or maybe you can tell me where Google open sourced Android?

      Go spend your time more productively – like say, by taking English lessons.

    • Anonymous

      I know and watch that …. about my english, it can be that me, as a non native english speaker make some mistakes , so you speak a foreign language, maybe german, than we can discuss in my native language ! 

  • http://twitter.com/jimmyfal Jimmy Fallon

    I just want to know if Bing is involved in filtering out or sensoring search results to passify the Chinese.

  • Str11

    who gives a f _ _ _ about Bing and especially Baidu anyway!!

    • Anonymous

      well people like me cares about bing and some even for its marketshare.
      But it seems you do care as well, how cant you care about it if you read this article and you even commented.

    • Anonymous

      I do. I give far more of a shit about Bing than I ever will anything Google produces. Google sucks. They can’t produce decent software to save their soul, and they don’t even know what a good user experience or good UI even means.

  • http://www.appatic.com Avatar X

    This is a huge deal not only on a business wise sense, but also in a political one. Specially when talking about China. Now the only two big deals for microsoft to do would be coming to terms with Yahoo Japan (Yahoo Japan is independent of the rest of Yahoo) and Russia’s Yandex.

    Getting those 3 deals would be essential for truly disrupting Google Search iron grip on search worldwide and not just in the North America (Canada, USA, Mexico) being the only place where Bing is actually growing well.

  • http://twitter.com/laowaiblog Laowai Blog

    As Google is out of the game in China, Baidu teams up with Yahoo! to create a worth opponent for Google. Who said that the internet scene in China is boring?

    http://laowaiblog.com

  • Laguna

    lolz, MS did the smart thing they saw google tried to enter that market and failed. If you cant beat’em, join’em !