Source: StatCounter
This dominance – especially in light of the China revelation – could be attributable to two factors:
- Google currently holds an average 98.7% market share in India – which has a similar scale of population as China – with similar numbers estimated in many other parts of Asia over the past 12 months;
- Chinese users are reportedly stepping away from using search engines in favour of searching within one-stop apps that are more tailored to their queries.
“Search” is an important source of revenue for Google and Baidu since ads for various fee-paying companies will receive priority placement on top of search results based on the user’s query. In 2020, over 80% of Alphabet’s $183 billion in revenue – $147 billion – came from Google’s ads business. Similarly, 70% of Baidu’s $18.7 billion in revenue for 2020 – $13 billion – came from ads.
Like Google’s YouTube, Baidu has a video/streaming service – iQIYI – with content at both free and subscription models along with revenue generated for the company via online advertising. Unlike YouTube, however, iQIYI offers TV shows and movies, thus making it analogous to the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime.
In terms of technology, the increasing component of AI in Baidu’s offerings is likely to help drive up pricing of its ads, since it promises to offer more intuitive ad serving. In the past, Google has consistently claimed competitive victory thanks to its detailed search results, in-depth analytics, and evolving service offerings. If AI helps the company’s business to evolve better, it’s very unlikely that Google would be far behind Baidu in this regard.
Like Alphabet and Baidu, Singapore-based Sea Limited is described – and officially describes itself – as an internet platform operating across Southeast Asia and Taiwan. However, the term “internet platform” doesn’t describe all of it. Sea Limited – simply put – is an influential conglomerate that owns a number of online businesses, the Lion City Sailors FC (a football club), Indonesian bank PT Bank Kesejahteraan Ekonomi (BKE), Hong Kong-based hedge fund Composite Capital Management and a host of other companies.
The main drivers of Sea’s revenues – however – are two of its online properties – Shopee and Garena.
