The Financial Times reports that Google has been recalibrating its China presence since removing its search engine from mainland-based servers a year ago:
Google is trying to balance the loss of search market share after its partial retreat from China by aggressively expanding the business of placing video and banner advertisements on other websites, according to its top executive in the country.
“Over the last 12 months, China has been one of Google’s largest display markets in the world, and it continues to grow rapidly,” John Liu, the company’s vice-president for greater China operations, told the Financial Times.
“Display” refers to Google’s growing advertising network business, rather than to the ads placed next to search results on its own website.
The interview marks the first time that the company has discussed the business consequences of confronting the Chinese government over censorship in January and moving its China web search to its Hong Kong site in March.
It also comes as US diplomatic cables released on WikiLeaks at the weekend highlighted Google’s relationship with the Chinese government again.