A search-engine in Thai
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China's top search service provider Baidu has a plan to offer a search-engine service in Thai early next year, the first non-Chinese language it has chosen among the 10 Asean countries, according to its spokesman.
Google of China will launch the service soon, but it’s unlikely within this year, said Kaiser Kuo, Baidu’s director of international communications.
The service could be launched “late this year, but probably in 2014”, he said. “I think Thai will be the first Asean language to be launched.” He, however, refused to divulge their plans.
Kuo, a Chinese-American with long hair and a former rock musician, talked to a group of Southeast Asian journalists who recently visited the Baidu Campus, the company’s head office in a Beijing suburb.
Baidu is the dominant search provider in China with more than 70 per cent of the market by revenue. It claims 82 per cent of China’s Web-page searches. It offers many services, including a Chinese-language search engine for websites, audio files, and images.
The leading Chinese Web services company has a research centre in Singapore that focuses on regionalising Baidu’s Web products for Southeast Asia, which is sure to include its flagship search engine. Initially, the focus is on Southeast Asian languages including Thai, Vietnamese, and Bahasa Indonesia, according to Kuo.
