Analysis: A Year after China Retreat, Google Plots New Growth

Reuters reports on new plans by Google to remain a player in the China market a year after battling China’s censors and moving its Chinese search engine to Hong Kong:

The road to recovery will certainly be a bumpy one, but the Internet giant looks to have enough in place to rebuild its presence in the world’s biggest Internet market with more than 400 million users.

“Do I think they can do it? Yes, the market is still growing very fast, a small piece of the big pie is still a big piece,” said T.R. Harrington, chief executive of search marketing consultancy Darwin Marketing.

China’s search market was worth 11 billion yuan ($1.7 billion) in 2010 and is expected to grow an average of 50 percent each year over the next four years, according to iResearch.

While Google’s share in China’s search arena is set to further decline for a few more years, the sheer size and the rampant pace of growth of the overall market should provide it with enough buffer for now.

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