By the end of the half, Taobao.com has enrolled 72 million members. And a latest report by China IntelliConsulting Corporation said that the website has created 380,000 jobs directly and 1 million indirectly.

Being a pioneer for the Chinese e-commerce market, Taobao.com is facing increasingly aggressive challenges from new comers recently, as the market is at a fledging stage, leaving large space for growth, according to the executive.

In 2005, Tecent, Inc., the Chinese language portal website and instant massaging software developer, established its online shopping platform named Paipai.com, which became the second largest C2C operator in China two years later. And at the end of 2006, Tom.com, another Chinese language portal website, joins hands with eBay Inc. to enter the Chinese e-commerce market.

Moreover, Baidu.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU and FRA:B1C) China's largest online search engine, will also participate in the scramble by formally launching its Baiductoc.com. And the venture has lured more more than 10,000 merchant consumers during its preparation, which are furnishing their online stores for starting business before the end of 2008, according to a Baidu.com executive.

Besides, the online networking arms of Baidu.com and its partners like banks and logistics operators have been armed to the teeth for the debut of the new venture.

In the face of the competitors, Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group, parent of Taobao.com, announced not long ago that his company would add CNY 2 billion in the subsidiary in five years. On October 8, 2008, the Taobao.com president Lu Zhaoxi affirmed that the investment would be CNY 5 billion.

The president believes that other C2C operators in China are no rival of Taobao.com, which has aimed at the globe. And his confidence is somewhat mirrored by Taobao.com's next goal, to be the e-commerce platform of e-commerce platforms.

In addition, on September 3, Taobao.com began to shield the Baidu.com search engine, which is suspected of being paid for sensationalizing the cognition of certain companies with some technical measures. But days later, Baidu.com defined Taobao.com as the rumor weaver.

From www.hexun.com, Page 1, Wednesday, October 08, 2008
 info@SinoCast.com

comScore Releases Asia-Pacific Search Rankings for July 2008

TOKYO, Sept. 17 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ --

More than 27 Billion Searches Conducted in July

Chinese Search Engine Baidu.com Captures More than 25 Percent of Search Market in Asia-Pacific

comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its ranking of the top search properties in the Asia-Pacific region based on data from the comScore qSearch 2.0 service, revealing that Google Sites continued to lead the region with 33.5 percent of the more than 27 billion searches conducted in July. Baidu.com Inc. ranked second with 27.4 percent search share, followed by Yahoo! Sites in third with 19.7 percent share.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080115 COMSCORELOGO )

"Although Google leads the Asia-Pacific search market, powerhouse Chinese search engine Baidu.com follows closely on its heels with only a 6-percent difference separating the two," said Will Hodgman, comScore executive vice president for the Asia-Pacific region. "It will be interesting to watch Google and Baidu compete for the top spot in the region and the loyalty of the growing Asian population."

Google Leads Search Market in Asia Pacific

Google Sites led the search ranking with more than 9 billion searches conducted during July, followed by Baidu.com Inc. with 7.4 billion searches and Yahoo! Sites with 5.3 billion searches. Korea's NHN Corporation captured the #4 ranking with 1.2 billion searches (4.6 percent market share), while China's Alibaba.com Corporation ranked fifth with 823 million searches (3 percent market share).

China Leads in Total Search Volume, Korea in Search Intensity

China hosts more searchers than any other country in the Asia-Pacific region, with 143.5 million searchers conducting 11 billion search queries in July. Japan ranks second in both metrics, with 61 million searchers conducting nearly 6.2 billion searches. Searchers in Korea exhibited the heaviest search intensity with an average of 102.8 searches per searcher during the month, followed by Australia (102 searches per searcher) and Japan (100.8 searches per searcher).

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com/boilerplate.

SOURCE comScore, Inc.

CONTACT: Sarah Radwanick

of comScore, Inc.,

+1-312-775-6538,

press@comscore.com

Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080115 COMSCORELOGO

AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org

PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com

Web site: http://www.comscore.com

(SCOR)