In an interview with digital marketing magazine The Drum, the CEO of Chinese digital agency Charmclick and MD of Net Media Planet have claimed that Chinese search monolith Baidu are targeting UK and European brands to increase their presence in Western markets.

Charmclick, in partnership with paid search agency Net Media Planet, have suggested to The Drum that Baidu are ready to make a serious push on international search markets currently dominated by Americans Google and Bing.

According to Baidu's figures, Google currently has a 7.4% share of the Chinese search market in comparison to Baidu's 82% - a user base of approximately 564 million people.


Speaking to The Drum, Charmclick CEO Johnny Zhu said: "We don't only sell PPC and keywords, we also try to provide more detail on industry information. For example if a jewellery retailer wants to sell in China but doesn't understand the details, we are able to assist them. We have a huge team working on industry research. So a client can request details from us on the search behaviour of that category to send to them to support their position."

Sri Sharma, managing director of Net Media Planet, explained more of Baidu's global strategy.

"We're targeting brands that already have an international exposure and are looking for a broader net where they may already have some exposure in China and want to know how to capitalise on that. Then there are brands who are aspiring to grow internationally. If they are interesting in doing that then they could find this a good conduit to testing a channel in a market where they can grow their brand awareness through search and awareness on Baidu, use paid search advertising on Baidu, learn from the experience and gain insights from what sells...It's going to be for brands who are thinking big." 

Google's saturation and stranglehold on Western search has made it impossible for local rivals to compete, but perhaps the challenge of its Chinese equivalent