Loren Baker posted some information on the search engine competition going on in China. He cited a survey which showed that Baidu.com Inc. had boosted its market share in Beijing by 10.8 percentage points to 52 percent. Google share was at 33 percent.

Six months ago, Google held the largest market share in the three cities covered by the survey. The survey showed Baidu has a 43.9 percent market share in Shanghai compared to 38.2 percent for Google. In Guangzhou, Google€™s market share was 28.7 percent while Baidu€™s was 48 percent. Yahoo! held only a 3.7 percent market share overall, with smaller Chinese rivals Sohu.com and Sina Corp. claiming a 4.6 percent and 4 percent share, respectively.

Google has launched a beta of Google local with business listings for 100 cities and maps for 77 cities. I am staggered by the coverage and pace at which Google is aggressively building out Google local in China. Having visited China about a year ago, I was struck by just how vast the country is. What Google is doing in China makes what it's accomplished the U.S. look easy – and all of us who follow local know that it is no layup.