Baidu is China's answer to Google, and it's the most popular search engine in the country. Aiming to expand its growth beyond the borders of China, the tech giant leaps into the fast-growing markets in search for the next billion. And India is next in its cross hair.
As a start, Baidu that has established an office in New Delhi on December 2015, won't expand its search engine just yet. To penetrate the Indian market, Baidu aims to grow user base for its mobile apps such as MoboMarket which is an alternative to Google Play that commands about 90 percent share of the country's mobile phone market, DU Battery Saver and also DU Booster.
India is a country with more than 300 million mobile internet users, and Baidu is seeing this as a huge market where it can play well. The company's stated goal is to build a robust ecosystem of mobile products and services.
"India has a large base of internet users and this is moving up rapidly. Baidu sees the country as a strategic market, and we will have a big focus here," said Tim Yang, the head of Baidu in India
Mobile-First: A Growing Market
While traditional PCs aren't going to be replaced anytime soon, they're indeed having lesser users. India is one country that has a mobile-first market. As more Indians go online, most of them come from mobile devices.
Apps on MoboMarket are supporting both English and Hindi, and in Baidu's latest move, it's going to add five Indian languages: Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, and Telugu. These languages are spoken by 33 percent of the population, according to an Indian Ministry of Home Affairs census, making them almost as important as Hindi at 41 percent.
"Even though the technology industry in India is dominated by English, that language is just a tiny sliver when you consider India's enormous linguistic diversity," said Jeff Li, the Product Director of MoboMarket, in a statement.
"Over 1,000 languages are spoken throughout India. Content in regional languages is in huge demand, and we're going to keep working to bridge the language gap for more people," added Li.
Initially, Baidu targets young and potential markets such as Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia which the company has no powerful competitor. India at first wasn't at its priority list because the country has tech giants of its own, and this could prove itself as a foreign contender difficult to penetrate.
But the regional expansion on South East Asia has not always gone well. Like for example the anger in Vietnam at China for its growing power made Baidu took a step back from its strategy.
Tech Expanding Beyond The Borders
Baidu started the initiative in India by talking to invest in Indian e-commerce startups including Zomato, BookMyShow and BigBasket. "The Indian market represents an enormous opportunity for us to connect more people with services, and we plan to put more resources there in the future," said the company's spokesman.
For a good reason, India's market is booming rapidly since the rise of mobile in the country. 20 percent off the 1.3 billion population are connected to the internet, and they all have high potentials to Baidu.
That growth potential has also attracted investment from global technology giants such as China's Alibaba Group Holding.
Other mobile tech app developer such as China's Cheetah Mobile and Sungy Mobile have already expand globally using a similar manner. Mobile utility apps are making much money on the mobile sphere and that makes sense since they're showing roughly 60 percent of mobile ads available.
