Microsoft’s (MSFT) Online Opportunity In China

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

Unlike most counties, China’s top websites are not Yahoo! (YHOO) and Google (GOOG). According to a new Asia internet study by comScore, two of the top three sites in China are Baidu (BIDU), the country’s top search engine and Tencent, the instant messaging site.

But, the most visited web destinations in China are the Microsoft (MSFT) sites. Some of this traffic is clearly to parts of Microsoft’s online presence related to its desktop, server, and other products. But, some significant portion of its is undoubtedly directed to MSN and Live.

Microsoft has an edge in China that Google and Yahoo! do not. It can use traffic to its internet properties to promote is MSN and Microsoft Live search features.

China still only has a 9% penetration of internet users compared to 59% in Hong Kong.

It is an opportunity that Microsoft cannot afford to let pass.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected].

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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