Google launched its free music service on the mainland yesterday, plugging a big hole in its competition with domestic rival Baidu.
'We were missing one piece ... we didn't have music,' said Lee Kai-fu, the president of Google Greater China. 'With [this] offering, we complete the puzzle and offer a set of services that are fully integrated.'
Google users on the mainland are now able to search for, and download for free, music produced by Warner Music, Sony, Universal, EMI and 140 other independent labels, through a search function Google jointly launched with Top100.cn, a Chinese website for downloading licensed music.
Google said it would share advertising revenue from the music website with the leading music labels in a market where, according to an estimate by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, 99 per cent of all downloads were from pirated sources.
'We are making efforts to have music search severed from piracy, and that is the basis of the innovation that will sustain the growth of our music search business,' Mr Lee said.
The service offers downloads of about 350,000 songs by Chinese and foreign artists, with the number to be expanded to 1.1 million in coming months, according to Gary Chen, the chief executive of Top100.cn.
Google had no plans to expand to any other country in the foreseeable future, Mr Lee said.