百度搜索退出日本揭祕 最大對手並非谷歌

Chinese tech giant Baidu has shut down the Japanese search engine that it first launched in 2007. The site, which used to feature a Japanese-language search engine that hoped to rival Google and Yahoo in the country, now just features a mission statement and a bunch of email addresses for its business partners to reach out to.
中國科技巨頭百度關閉了於2007年首次發佈的日語搜索引擎。該引擎曾是百度日本網站的一項功能，被寄予和谷歌、雅虎競爭日本市場的希望。但如今的百度日本只有一份使命宣言和一批商業夥伴的郵箱地址。

A Baidu spokesperson confirmed today to Tech in Asia that the Baidu Japan search engine is now shut. “But that doesn’t preclude the possibility that we will bring it back one day, or introduce our search technology services through other platforms in Japan,” he added.
今天，一名百度的發言人向Tech in Asia確認，百度日本的搜索引擎已被關閉。他還補充：“但這並不代表我們不會在未來某天重開百度日本搜索引擎，或是將我們的搜索技術用在日本的其它平臺上。”

Despite this setback, Baidu is keeping open its Japan office and pursuing its popular Simeiji app, which is a keyboard for iOS and Android for typing Japanese.
儘管搜索引擎遭遇挫折，百度還將維持在日本的辦公室，並繼續致力於它大受歡迎的手機應用Simeiji。Simeiji是用於輸入日語的鍵盤，兼容iOS和安卓平臺。

“This was a business decision based largely on Baidu’s company-wide effort to focus our energies on becoming a fully mobile-first company,” said the Baidu spokesperson. “This means increasing our commitment to mobile and O2O when and where it’s most appropriate. In the Japanese market specifically, this move makes a lot of business sense. Smartphone penetration in Japan is now over 70 percent, and it’s a largely iOS-dominated market – over 60 percent market share as of December 2014. Our iOS input app Simeji is very popular, with over 14 million users and and a top-ranking position on Apple’s App Store in Japan. That’s just one example of the mobile potential of the Japanese market.”
百度的發言人稱：“整個百度公司都將集中力量，努力成爲一家完全的移動優先的公司。很大程度上，關閉百度日本搜索引擎這項商業決定正是基於此。這意味着我們要在最合適的時間和地點增加對移動和O2O的投入。特別在日本市場，這一舉措在商業上非常合理。2014年，進入日本市場的智能手機份額超過了60%，而現在這一比例已經超過70%，這是一個非常大的iOS主導的市場。我們的iOS輸入應用Simeji非常受歡迎，擁有1400萬用戶，並在日本的蘋果應用商店裏排名第一。這只是日本移動市場潛力的一個例子。”

Though Baidu Japan opened in 2007, it required a relaunch in 2008 after a shaky start. Yahoo Japan is the nation’s top search engine, followed by Google.
2007年，百度日本搜索引擎的首次亮相併不成功，不得不在2008年再次發佈。雅虎是日本排名第一的搜索引擎，其次是谷歌。