Baidu signs China Carrier search deal for Next Generation Phones

Previously, Google signed a contact with China’s biggest carrier to gain footprint in China, however, their number one competitor in this nation signed a deal that will add their search pre-installed on many of the next generation phones, starting with a side-by-side display on the launch of the iPhone next month.

Google is included in virtually every new released mobile telephone today (being pre-installed with Android and iPhone OS and all), In an attempt to overcome this dominant stronghold, China’s number one search engine Baidu announced that their services will be pre-installed on these next-generation mobile phones in China. The pre-installed services will include internet search, music store and message forum and will be put on 3G handsets, including iPhone from China Unicom. For China Telecom, services are also embedded, but Google signed the search and application search on those particular phones. While the market is preparing, competition seems to be getting fierce, can Google stand a chance being side-by-side a local competitor?

China’s three carriers are all expanding their 3G networks this year and racing to attract users for them. Pcworld.com reports that Baidu performs three out of four online searches in China. Chinese mobile users performed over 270 million Web searches on their phones in the second quarter this year, more than twice as much as in the same period a year earlier. (read more)