The World: Why Google is being beaten by the local talent.(Baidu.com Inc.)

Overseas brands are finding it very hard to get a foothold in China because they are seen as too 'foreign'.

For most of the world, 'Google' has entered the lexicon in place of 'internet search' as a result of its huge popularity. But for China's 132 million internet users, it hardly registers. For them, the word is 'Baidu'.

Founded seven years ago by its chairman and chief executive, Robin Li, a former engineer at the Walt Disney-owned Infoseek, the home-grown search engine Baidu.com has stormed its way to market dominance in China.

With a lead of almost 70 per cent of internet searches, a Nasdaq listing in 2005 and an 84 per cent share of music searches, Baidu.com is blazing a trail into other online services in China, leaving the likes of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft MSN in its wake.

The difference in fortunes in China between the local search engine and its multinational rivals has come to highlight how complex the market that contains one-fifth of the world's population really is. It also raises the question: How can multinational brands build upon global success inside China given such wide differences?

The name Baidu, which comes from an 800-year-old poem and means 'hundreds of times', is also fast becoming associated with other online services.

Last year, Baidu.com launched a Chinese-language video channel and has become a leading supplier of online news, MP3 files and pictures. It has also formed an alliance with Viacom's MTV Networks and Motorola to produce and distribute programming and content across all media platforms.