Yahoo China Puts On a Suit and Tie
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | January 8, 2007 | Share This
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According to Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba, Yahoo China is to become a business-oriented search engine. The new engine will favor results from corporate and e-commerce sites, and will target a “high-income” demographic. The change will not only help differentiate Yahoo China from competing search engines Baidu, Sina and Google,it will better align Yahoo China with Alibaba’s other online properties.
Since 1999, Yahoo has struggled to find a market niche in China. In 2005, they finally ceded control to a local e-commerce giant, the Alibaba Group, which In addition to running Yahoo China, owns online auction site TaoBao and popular online payment service, Alipay.com. As a business search engine, Yahoo China will not appeal to the younger demographic that populates rivals’ search traffic. Says Ma, “We don’t want those not interested in business or making money. They can go to Baidu.”
Simultaneous to their announcement about Yahoo China, Alibaba released Alisoft, an online business software provider for small and medium sized businesses. Targeting Alibaba’s current customer base, Alisoft offers software for Customer Relations Management, Inventory Management, Sales Force Management, Financial Tools, and Marketing Information Management. As Yahoo News reports, The Alibaba Group “now covers all five pillars of e-commerce: trust, e- marketplace, search, payment and software.”
Paul Waide, an analyst for JLM Pacific Epoch, notes, “selling to Alibaba’s customers sounds like a great idea. You probably don’t want to go up against Baidu and Google for search and Sina.com for news.” As in the US, over 90% of the search market in China is dominated by three main engines. By differentiating Yahoo China as the back-end search product linking Alibaba’s e-commerce services, Yahoo China can grow without trying to compete with rival search giants.
Ma’s strategy should be especially interesting to Ask.com, which currently ranks as the 4th most popular engine in the US (holding 4.8% of the search market). The IAC recently released two new variations of Ask (AskCity and AskX) that set foundations for future integration between other IAC and Ask search services. Such an integration could give Ask a boost in traffic without overtly challenging Google or Yahoo.
Related Links
- Devil In Disguise: Yahoo China Has Most Heavily Censored Results.
- Knocking Holes in China’s Great Firewall
- Trans-Pacific Cable to Speed America/China Internet Connection
Topics: Yahoo! |