The head of Google Greater China will leave!

On July 15th, Google China announced that Liu Yun, Google’s vice president and head of Greater China, will leave the company in the near future. The successor to this position is Scott Beaumont, head of Google Europe's strategic partnership development business, and will take over Google’s operations in Greater China in August.

In September 2009, after Lee Kai-Fong resigned, his business and operational responsibilities in Greater China fell to the shoulders of Liu Yun, Google’s vice president of worldwide sales. Compared with his predecessor, Li Kaifu, Liu Yun did not encounter a good time. After Liu Yun took over Google’s China operations a few months ago, Google began to adjust its market strategy in China. In January 2010, Google first proposed "consider exiting the Chinese market." In March, Google decided to transfer services such as web search and news search to Google.com.hk. Since then, Google’s market share in China has been declining, dropping from as high as 30% to about 20% in half a year.

For Liu Yun’s performance in Google in recent years, people in the industry have compared him to “a good-looking family member”. This may have realistic flaws. He took over the mess and met people overturning the mess. Liu Yun insisted on doing 4 years. He didn't mix anything with him for 4 years. Nothing happened to him. Although this industry didn't advance, he returned this time. If not, it is victory. ”

"Lost in the pattern, winning in details." A former Google executive in China commented on Liu Yun. He said that there are problems with Google’s China structure and that no one can change the fate of Google’s decline in China.

Persons familiar with Liu Yun said that as early as more than a year ago, Liu Yun had the idea of ​​leaving the company. “Google’s growth in China is already facing a serious bottleneck. Any person with an idea will leave.” Since 2008, Liu Yun has joined Google For five years, perhaps this professional manager was sufficiently loyal.

Google's business in China is difficult

In 2012, for Liu Yun and his team, it was undoubtedly a bad year. Before that, since 360 ​​search was the default search for Google, Google China got a lot of traffic from 360, barely maintaining its traffic size and influence. However, the 360 ​​search launch changed everything and caused Google’s Chinese search traffic to lose about half of the time.

What's even more frightening is that the amount of lost navigation traffic is precisely the highest quality part of the traffic, while the remaining high-end users have relatively low acceptance of ads, which will greatly affect their total advertising revenue and conversion rate. Without such traffic, not only Google itself, but the days of its agents and advertisers have become extremely sad. For Liu Yun, the chief sales officer, this is obviously bad news.

Although after a long period of negotiations, 360 and Google reached advertising cooperation at the beginning of this year, however, many industry figures believe that 360 selection and Google's cooperation in advertising is only an expedient measure. In the long run, 360 is destined to use all of its own. The advertising system, this cooperation for Google, only delays the decline in speed, the outcome has been inevitable. A senior search industry source told Tencent Technology that with the evolution of the 360 ​​advertising system, Google's advertising system is now more like a tasteless role in 360 search.

The worst case is obviously not over. A data report has recently revealed a cruel fact: CNZZ data from traffic statistics agency shows that in June of this year, Google’s share of the Chinese search market was only 2.13%. Google’s share rankings even lag behind China’s. Tencent’s Soso’s ranking slipped to fifth, leaving Google’s dignity in China.

Now Google is undoubtedly synonymous with high technology in foreign countries, Google Glass, Google Auto, Google Earth, Google Android system, all shine brilliantly, but Google in China proud but face real difficulties: Google's current server is not in the country, its The exploration of Chinese search quality and user experience has been almost stagnant. Products such as the Chinese Open Platform that are extremely helpful to the user experience have not followed up. Many popular queries have not been optimized based on the characteristics of Chinese users.

A former Google executive pointed out that Google's core is search. Whether Google Glass, Google Auto, or other applications, search is its most fundamental support technology, but Google faces huge policy hurdles in China. If Google does not change its original strategy, these good technologies cannot be implemented in China at all. "A lot of people are looking forward to it and looking forward to Google's return. But now, the rivers and lakes are no longer the original rivers and lakes. Even if the original martial arts leader returns, he will find it difficult to have his former status."

European executives take over strategy

Google’s successor to Liu Yun is Scott Beaumont, who is responsible for Google’s strategic cooperation in Europe.

Scott joined Google in early 2009. Prior to this, he had a four-year entrepreneurial experience. Fresh Mobile, a company he participated in, had published two major products and all were related to mobile internet.

Prior to this, Scott was executive vice president of business development for telecom operator T-Mobile International and assisted in the establishment of the T-Mobile venture capital fund. Earlier, he was an analyst at Zhan Jinbao (later acquired by HSBC) responsible for the telecommunications industry. It was during this period that he saw the rise of mobile phones and the Internet and had enthusiasm for these two areas.

Google chose him as Liu Yun’s successor to reveal several layers of signals:

First of all, Scott has a profound accumulation in the field of mobile Internet, which will help Google China to explore more mobile Internet.

Second, Scott is good at business development, and Google China now also needs more partners, whether it is developers of mobile applications or advertisers;

Thirdly, European executives are taking over Chinese local executives and not temporarily hosting them. This may mean that Google is not optimistic about the prospects for localization business. Google China may become more and more a Google global R&D center.

However, Google's strategy in China has not changed much in the short term. Can this successor who loves the challenge regain the momentum and time will give the answer?