3.2.6 The commercial search engines in the world

As mentioned in chapter 3.2.1, 6 research out of 10 on the Internet are made on Google.

However it does not mean that each country in the world has a population of 60% Google users.

Search engine leaders (>50%) per country personal estimation in 2009

(Alexa Web. (n.d). Alexa Top 500 Global Sites.)

The world is not covered entirely by Google. There are some 7 other leaders: Yahoo, Yandex (Mail.ru), Baidu, Microsoft, Naver, Seznam and Leit.is.

Almost all the American continent is using Google as well as Europe, Northern Africa, Southern Africa, Australia and India.

In one word almost all countries which have strong links with the Anglo-Saxon culture.

The strong presence of Yandex in Eastern Europe (ex-soviet countries) and Russia could let us think about a possible « boycott of American technologies » and support of Russian technologies. The recent partnership between Yandex (main search engine in Russia) and the browser Firefox is increasing those suspicions. (cf. Houste, F. (2009). Russie: Yandex sera le moteur de recherche par défaut de Firefox.)/(cf. Schwartz, B. (2009). Firefox Drops Google For Yandex In Russia, But Big Loser May Be Rambler)

The same observation can be made in China. The recent advertisement broadcast by Baidu (Baidu. (2006). Baidu advertisement.)(the search engine leader in China) are going in that sense, showing clearly the will of getting rid of foreigner search engines. (cf. Einhorn, B. (2007). Baidu Thinks It Can Play in Japan.)/(cf. Grallet, G. (2009). Baidu, un autre Google s'éveille.)/(cf. Shijun, Z./Peng, N./Weifeng, X. (2006). 时尚中国—网动中国英. p.45)

The Russian and Chinese cases are contradictory with the concept mentioned in the book ―Winners, Losers and Microsoft‖ which is saying that the best product always win. (Liebowitz, S. J./Margolis, S. (1999). Winners, Losers and Microsoft) The search engine market is then not a rational one.

Information regarding Caribbean areas and Central Africa are hard to find and are not very relevant taking in account that the Internet is not well implemented yet.

On the other hand the Pacific area region is quite interesting because containing all the « Tigers » (Taiwan, Thailand...) are all in red: Yahoo.

As a conclusion the search engine world is divided into two parts:

• The Google planet: which is composed of all the Anglo-Saxon countries as well as countries which have strong links with the United States or Great Britain. Czech Republic and Iceland seem only to be a matter of time?. (cf. Rafat, A. (2008). Czech Portal Seznam Could Fetch $900 Million; Google, Apax, Warburg and Others in Fray.)/(cf. Mar Hauksson, K. (2007). Global search report 2007)
• The Asian – Pacific regions: Asia is composed of a lot of countries and then a lot of cultures. Among them we can identify four players:

- Yandex (Mail.ru) which is dominating all the ex-soviet countries;

-Baidu which has a total control over China;

-Naver (NHN Corporation), a 100% South Korean product which is the best example that search engines work by culture;

-Yahoo which is leader in almost all "Tigers" Asian countries.

Yahoo being an American technology how can we explain his domination in Asia? The reason is mainly cultural, Yahoo is a shiny portal and that Asian culture on the Internet recognize a quality website to the number of animations on it. (cf. Tobin, R./Hotchkiss, G./Lee, P. (2008). Chinese Search Engine Engagement.) Another explanation could be the leading presence of Yahoo in Japan which can influence the tigers countries. Moreover Japan has one of the highest rate of the Internet integration in the world per capita. (Internet World Stats. (2009). Internet Usage in Asia.)