Google Inc's position as the most popular Internet search site and sales from fast-growing Asian markets such as China will help the company weather any US recession, chief executive officer Eric Schmidt said.
"One of the very good sources for Google is the very rapid growth in Asia," Schmidt said on Monday at a briefing in Beijing.
Historically, people tend to shift their money to the most "highly measured" advertiser when there are "economic difficulties," he said.
PHOTO: AFP
Google, which generates about half its sales outside the US, said operations overseas, including China, are "well positioned" to cope with a US slowdown.
Google's shares have fallen 39 percent this year, after climbing 50 percent last year, amid concern the world's largest economy is in recession.
"The Chinese online advertising market is one of the best places to be," said Elinor Leung (
Leung has a "buy" rating on Baidu.com Inc (
Web search sales for China, which Google said on Monday overtook the US as the biggest online market by users, may almost double to 5 billion yuan (US$706 million) this year and climb to 22.1 billion yuan by 2012, researcher BDA China Ltd projected.
Schmidt declined to provide figures for Google's sales growth in Asia or China. The company probably generated 501 million yuan from China last year, Credit Suisse estimated, or less than 1 percent of revenue.
Google's local investments and partnerships with Chinese Web sites have failed to help it close the twofold market-share lead Baidu has in the nation.
Baidu expanded its market share to 60 percent in the fourth quarter from 58 percent a year earlier, while Google's rose to 26 percent from 17 percent, researcher Analysys International said.
Google's decision in 2006 to introduce a local search site that excludes information prohibited by China's government has drawn criticism from US lawmakers and human rights groups such as Amnesty International.
Access to the company's YouTube video-sharing site has been blocked in China since at least Saturday, after Tibet's biggest protest in almost 20 years began last week.
Searches on the Google.cn site for "Tibet" direct users to tourism Web sites, while similar queries on the international site, Google.com, offer links to the Web site of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader.
"We made a decision some years ago that it was more important to give whatever information we could to the citizens of China while observing the realities of local laws," Schmidt said, when asked whether the inaccessibility of YouTube in China was linked to the protests in Tibet.
The company is "working to ensure" the service is restored as soon as possible, Marsha Wang, a spokeswoman in Beijing for Google, said in an e-mail.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)