Google’s decision to redirect Chinese searchers to Google.com.hk is having some serious repercussions.  On Monday, Chinese Internet company Tom Online distanced itself from Google.  China Unicom followed suit on Wednesday.  And now, Motorola has also turned its back on the search giant.

Mark Lee and Hugo Miller reported late yesterday, "Motorola Inc., the handset maker that’s rebuilding its mobile-phone business around Google Inc.’s Android software, has dropped the U.S. Internet company’s search engine from one of its Android phones in China."

It looks like Baidu and Bing will be used as replacements, and in certain regards, that isn’t too shocking.  Deals between Motorola, Baidu, and Bing were announced months ago, and the two search engines represent the market leader and an obvious American alternative, respectively.

Still, as Lee and Miller pointed out, Google and Android are supposed to be central to Motorola’s strategy; the company’s in fact claimed that it will release 20-30 Android phones this year.  So Motorola must either have little confidence in Google’s ability to impress Chinese users, or it faced quite a lot of pressure to part ways with the American search giant.

Both of these possibilities imply that the fallout might continue.  Google fans, hold tight.

Google’s decision to redirect Chinese searchers to Google.com.hk is having some serious repercussions.  On Monday, Chinese Internet company Tom Online distanced itself from Google.  China Unicom followed suit on Wednesday.  And now, Motorola has also turned its back on the search giant.

Mark Lee and Hugo Miller reported late yesterday, "Motorola Inc., the handset maker that’s rebuilding its mobile-phone business around Google Inc.’s Android software, has dropped the U.S. Internet company’s search engine from one of its Android phones in China."

It looks like Baidu and Bing will be used as replacements, and in certain regards, that isn’t too shocking.  Deals between Motorola, Baidu, and Bing were announced months ago, and the two search engines represent the market leader and an obvious American alternative, respectively.

Still, as Lee and Miller pointed out, Google and Android are supposed to be central to Motorola’s strategy; the company’s in fact claimed that it will release 20-30 Android phones this year.  So Motorola must either have little confidence in Google’s ability to impress Chinese users, or it faced quite a lot of pressure to part ways with the American search giant.

Both of these possibilities imply that the fallout might continue.  Google fans, hold tight.

The second quarter of this year didn’t go so well for Google in China.  According to a new report, the American search giant’s market share shrunk a bit, while that of its Chinese equivalent, Baidu, managed to get larger.

iResearch found that over three-fourths of all searches in China (specifically, 75.7 percent) were performed using Baidu in the second quarter of 2009.  This represents a gain of 1.6 percent compared to the first quarter.

Meanwhile, Google lost a similar lump of market share during that period – 1.1 percent – which landed it at a standing of 19.8 percent for the second quarter.

And finally, Owen Fletcher reported, "Microsoft’s Bing search engine also attracted a fraction of Chinese users after it went online in early June, but Microsoft will have to continue improving the service to retain users . . . .  Bing drew 0.3 percent of the searches in China in the second quarter."

It doesn’t look like any American corporation is particularly close to taking over the Chinese search market, then.  Although they’re sure to keep trying, since the market keeps growing in size and value.