Chinese want to compete with Google in Brazil

14/02/2012 - 08h44

Baidu, the leading Chinese search engine, is opening an office in São Paulo. The initial objective is to get to know the Brazilian and Latin American market in order to design a strategy for the region.

"The idea is to compete directly with Google," Wesley Barbosa, 25, the person from Alagoas newly hired for the position of business manager for Latin America, told Folha. Currently in Beijing, he will be moving to São Paulo in three months.

Barbosa says that the office, located near Ave. Paulista, is expected to reach 20 employees in the next six months. "But it could end up being many more, depending on market response."

There is still no forecast for the launch of the website in Portuguese, says the executive. Before that, Baidu has to launch some subproducts, like an encyclopedia similar to Wikipedia, available in Mandarin.

"Baidu has the philosophy of providing answers to questions. The parallel services are built to respond to the search," says Barbosa.

Internationalization is a growing desire of Baidu, which holds about 80% of the search traffic in China, benefiting from the problems faced by Google with the country's government over censorship.

In January, the company, based in Beijing, announced the construction of a building in Shenzhen (in the south, adjacent to Hong Kong), from which it will coordinate operations abroad. The inauguration is scheduled for three years from now, in 2015.

"The internet via cell phone and internationalization are important guidelines for Baidu's expansion," said Robin Li, 43, founder and president of the company, in a statement at the time. Li is the second richest person in China, worth an estimated $9.2 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

Listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange, Baidu has a market value of about $45 billion. Its most recent balance sheet, released in September of last year, showed revenue of $655 million, 85% higher than the same period in 2010.

The numbers reveal the market strength of the Chinese internet, which just passed 500 million users, the largest connected population in the world.

Transalted by DAVE WOLIN