Google Play store to launch in China next year

BEIJING/HONG KONG (By Paul Carsten and Yimou Lee, Reuters) — Google, part of Alphabet Inc., aims to launch the China version of its Google Play smartphone app store next year, according to people familiar with the matter, its first major foray in the market since ending localized product support in 2010.

The Google Play app store would be set up specifically for China, and not connected to overseas versions of Google Play, two of the people said.

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Google intends to comply with Chinese laws on filtering content that might be viewed as sensitive by the ruling Communist Party, and laws requiring the company to store the app store’s data within the country, those two people said.

A Singapore-based Google spokesman declined to comment.

Google largely pulled its services out of China five years ago after refusing to continue self-censoring its search results. It has maintained a limited presence in the world’s biggest smartphone market, but most of its services, including Play, have been rendered borderline inaccessible.

The U.S. company would use a successful app store as a launch pad to get other products and services into the country, said two people familiar with Google’s thinking. However, the company has not settled on which product might come next, they said.

Chief executive Sundar Pichai and other top brass have made no secret that the company wants to get back into China, and Google Play will likely be its first foray.

But critics say Google has lost basically all ground in most of its major services, especially search and video streaming, to Chinese players.

Breaking the ice

For Google, having a product in China would be a symbolic gesture to show that the company values the market, said Shen Si, CEO of Chinese mobile advertising company PapayaMobile and a former Google employee.

“If they want to break the ice with the Chinese market then they have to pick a pretty important product to make available to the Chinese people and make it really localized,” she said.

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“Google Play would be a really good product for that because it’s not very sensitive.”

Google has had its employees working hard in China to lay the ground for the app store’s launch, said one of the people with knowledge of executives’ plans.

The U.S.-based firm is hoping to launch Google Play in China sometime after Chinese New Year in February next year, and before early summer, that person said. Another person at a company in China that works with Google said the store will go live in 2016.

The company hopes the app store will include as payment options Alipay, the online payment service from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s finance arm Ant Financial Services Group, and Tencent Holding Ltd’s WeChat Payment, said the person familiar with executives’ thinking.

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Rather than requiring explicit approval from China’s government to launch the app store, Google just needs to comply with Chinese laws including those governing data storage and content filtering, the person added. That was echoed by PapayaMobile’s Shen.

Spokeswomen for Ant Financial and Tencent declined to comment.

Too big to ignore

China is too big a market for Google to ignore. Apple Inc complies with local laws and made $58.7 billion last in the year ended Sept. 26 in Greater China, which includes the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, making it its second-biggest market.

Last month, Google said it would take a minority stake in Beijing-based artificial intelligence firm Mobvoi as part of a $75 million fundraising round, as the U.S. search giant tries to rebuild its presence in China.

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Because services like its search, e-mail and mapping are blocked in China, the U.S. firm is trying to cement partnerships with domestic providers like Mobvoi, which offers technology similar to Apple’s Siri and Google’s own version.

(Editing by Keith Weir)