Last month I wrote about China’s search market[1], how it is dominated by Baidu, and how that dominance is threatened by mobile-only disruptors such as Shenma.
While Shenma continues to build on its growth since being launched back in 2014, there have been news reports in the past few months suggesting Google may also be set to re-enter the market after having its search property (and others) blocked by the Chinese state back in 2010.
I want to use this post today to try and separate out the facts from the speculation in regards to these recent reports. What can be corroborated? What is rumor? And what can we reasonably expect from Google in China over the short and long term?
‘Project Dragonfly’ officially exists
The most recent official statement from Google on this came on 26th September at a Senate hearing attended by the search engine’s chief privacy officer Keith Enright and detailed at South China Morning Post[2].
“There is a Project Dragonfly,” Enright said, but added that he was “not clear on the contours of what is in scope or out of the scope for that project”.
Enright also pointed out “we’re not close to launching a search product in China, and whether we eventually could, or would, remains unclear.” He iterated that if Dragonfly was anywhere beyond the early phases of exploration and development, then his team would be in the process of reviewing the product to ensure it adhered to Google’s privacy values.
So while we can be certain Google is working on a search ‘project’ for the Chinese market, official word is that it is still very early days.