Injection of cash refuels Chinese searcher Sohoo

Intel and three other companies have invested US$2 million in a company producing a Chinese-language guide to the World-Wide Web similar to Yahoo.

Sohoo, or Search Fox in English, was located at www.

sohoo.com.cn and catalogued about 50,000 Web sites, said Charles Zhang, chief executive of Internet Technologies China (ITC), a start-up company in Beijing.

'The investment will be used to upgrade ITC's efforts in developing Sohoo into the ultimate source for China's growing Internet population,' he said.

The other investors include technology magazine publisher IDG, Heng Long and Harrison. These companies are 'willing to join us to open up the last major piece of virgin land on the Web', said Mr Zhang.

Statistics show the mainland has about 700,000 registered Internet users. Adding casual access, the total could be up to two million, and the annual growth rate has been about 120 per cent since 1994.

'There are huge demands for a nice Chinese search engine as people all over China keep pouring contents into the Web,' said Mr Zhang. 'Chinese net users will get lost without a guide.' While there are several other mainland Web guides and search engines, they tend to be too small to be much help. Launched in February this year, Sohoo is the only well-publicised guide, and is said to be the mainland's most visited site, with an average 12,000 to 15,000 users each day.