Google China update: Sohu announces plan to gain market share for its Sogou engine

According to local reports, Sohu’s chairman, Charles Zhang, has released a three-pronged strategy for the company’s Sogou search engine to gain ground in China. The strategy includes working with Google’s partners to offer search terms for lower minimums, improving its searches and products and approaching Google China employees to poach talent.

The reports note that Sohu will also launch a marketing and advertising initiative to bolster its search brand.

Following Google’s announcement, analysts have predicted that Baidu will be the main player to benefit from Google’s absence in the market as it claims the highest market share in China. However, Tencent was also pegged to gain ground, although the company hasn’t released whether it will change its strategy to widen its user base.

“This is definitely going to open the market up to the guys, including Tencent and to some extent Sohu and e-commerce search engines like Taobao’s,” partner at SoftBank China & India Holdings William Bao Bean said at the time. “In terms of taking over, some of the more traditional portals have an opportunity there and Tencent is well-positioned. It has the image of being a platform for younger users but these users are going to grow up with the company. For example, MSN was the messenger of choice for corporate users but the number of QQ IM users has grown and now it dwarfs MSN.”

The news comes the same day that mobile operator China Unicom announced it will not provide Google’s search function on its new handsets, a setback for the company that sought to gain headway through China's nascent 3G mobile landscape.