GOOGLE Inc is shutting its online music downloadservice in the Chinese mainland next month because of pressure from local rivalssuch as Baidu Inc and Tencent's QQ.
The service, available only to computers with an Internet address in the mainland, will close on October 19. Users of Music Search will be able to log in and download their stored playlistsuntil then.In its Chinese-language company blog, the US-based search giantadmitted that the music website's impact had been "less than expected."As with Google's core online search business, the music service found it difficult to compete with its domestic rivals.
By the end of second quarter, Google had 15.7 percent of the online search market in China, the world's biggest Internet market with 538 million computer users. That was far behind market leader Baidu, which had a 78.6 percent market share, according to Analysys International, a Beijing-based IT research firm.
Google's market share declined from more than 30 percent to 15 percent after it moved its China servers from the mainland to Hong Kong in 2010. Google's music website made its debutthree years ago, offering free and legal music content to Chinese consumers.Later, Baidu and Tencent began similar services which gradually came to dominatethe domestic online music market.
口译快讯：目前，用户访问谷歌音乐搜索服务，页面已提示，“谷歌音乐搜索服务已经关闭，页面提醒用户在10月19日之前登录并下载保存播放列表。”至此，Google.cn域名下近一段时期将只提供时惠、购物、翻译三个服务。停止音乐搜索是谷歌方面做出的决定，流量下降是谷歌关闭音乐搜索的最重要原因。谷歌音乐搜索的确没有达到预期的效果，尤其是谷歌在2010年初决定退出中国后，谷歌流量下降的非常厉害，音乐搜索也受到了很大的影响，并且谷歌中国也没有花太多精力在音乐搜索上。
（责任编辑:admin）
