Chinese firms find Google helpful

Google has invested heavily to help Chinese companies promote and sell products or services overseas through its search and Google Play services under a new strategy after moving its severs from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong in 2010.

Google has seen surging demand for online and mobile marketing overseas among Chinese companies, especially in tourism, finance services, e-commerce and games, Simon Kahn, Google Asia-Pacific's chief marketing officer, said in an interview yesterday.

"Consumers are going mobile everywhere, and it makes mobile traffic more and more valuable," said Kahn.

Though Google's services on the Chinese mainland have been hit since it moved servers to Hong Kong in 2010, the search giant has dominated markets overseas through Google Search, Google Play and YouTube. More than 70 percent of smartphones run on the Android system developed by Google.

The imports and exports of Chinese e-commerce sites surged 35 percent year on year in 2013, triple the growth rate of overall imports and exports in the same period, said a report released by the Ministry of Commerce and research firm iResearch.

E-commerce websites and game firms are fastest growing advertisers in mobile marketing and promotion in the overseas markets, said Google.

Facebook also plans to build a Beijing office to help Chinese firms expand overseas.