Academic English for Business and Management
Google‘s market changes in China
Your full name: Yang Zhifeng
Student number: 200767013
Submission date: 04/09/2013
Tutor’s name: Rosemary
Word count: 2115
Group number: 3
Contents
1. Introduction 2
2. The situation 2
2.1 An overview of the situation 2
2.2 Description of the company 3
2.3 Rationale 3
3. Analysis of the situation 4
3.1 Strengths 5
3.2 Weaknesses 7
3.3 Opportunities 8
3.4 Threats 8
4. Response and evaluation of response 9
5. Conclusion 11
6. References 12
1. Introduction
Google which was founded in 1998 is considered as one of the leading internet technology
companies in the world (Datamonitor, 2010). In 2006 Google entered China’s market;
unfortunately, in 2010 Google closed its China-based internet search services in Chinese
mainland and moved it to Hong Kong because of the following reasons: firstly, Google
was attacked by Chinese hacker who had not only stolen Google’s source code, but also
had broken into its Gmail accounts of China’s human rights activists; secondly, Google
had grown frustrated with complying with Chinese authority’s internet censorship rules
(Drummond, 2010). These market changes of Google had great effects on Chinese internet
users and Chinese internet search engines companies (Yueguang, 2010).
In this essay, the author will firstly describe Google’s situation in China in 2010 and
express why he has chosen Google as his case study. Then he will use the SWOT model to
analyze Google’s situation in China and evaluate Google’s response to its situation. Finally
a conclusion will be given and the author will also give his own opinion about Google’s
market changes.
2. The situation
2.1. An overview of the situation
In 2010 Google was facing a big dilemma about whether or not to quit Chinese mainland
market and this problem was mainly caused by the government censorship policy in China
(Datamonitor, 2010). At that time Google’s search market share fell dramatically to
approximately 30% (Lee, 2010) and in the end Google shut down its internet search
service in Chinese mainland market and moved it into Hong Kong (Oreskovic, 2010).
2.2. Description of the company
Google is an American multinational company specializing in internet search engine and
adverting services (Datamonitor, 2010). The headquarters of Google is situated in
Mountain View, California and every year Google makes huge profits through delivering
online advertising (Wilson et al, 2010). ‘This company’s mission is to organize the world’s
information and make it universally accessible and useful’ (Wilson et al, 2010). Currently,
