Apple may be continuing its “thermonuclear war” against Google next month, but this time the battlefield is in China. A Sina Technology News report out of China has indicated that Apple may be formally introducing Baidu search as the default search engine on iPhones shipped to China. Baidu Mobile Cloud General Manager Li Mingyuan, during a mobile Internet and cloud computing strategy conference, stated that Apple and Baidu “[have] reached a comprenhensive cooperation agreement in the Chinese market.”
From Sina Technology News (ironcially translated by Google Translate):
Close to the person familiar with the matter told Sina science and technology, as planned, the Baidu search engine will be formally introduced in April Apple iOS operating system, at least this cooperation will commence in the Chinese market. The person to provide a test shot shows Apple iOS comes with the Safari browser, the search engine will be set to Baidu … The current Safari built-in search engine Google (microblogging), by default , users can also choose to Yahoo and Bing.
Baidu currently has approximately 83.6 percent of the total search query market share in China, and they’re absolutely destroying the competition, which includes Google, SoSo, Sogou, and Bing, amongst others. Including the search giant in iOS and potentially as the default search engine within China is a bit of a no brainer at this point for Apple. With Apple increasing its presence in China, it makes no sense that they bring Google along for the ride and increase its market share in the search market. It looks like Baidu is in, and Google it out.
