Apple’s much-anticipated WWDC 2012 is about to kickstart on coming Monday. On the occasion, the company is expected to make a number of important announcements. While they are already a number of rumors as to what Apple may unveil at the event, a new rumor now suggests that Apple may announce Baidu as default iOS search engine for Chinese users at the event.
Apple has faced some tough time in entering the largest consumer market but now, China has started to warm up to the company. It may seem that on Apple’s part, this success has come with some trade-offs. One such trade-off may be announced by Apple during WWDC 2012.
According to Bloomberg, Apple is due to announce Baidu, the most-used search engine in China, as the default search engine for iPhone. This is a result of Apple’s deal with Baidu, a move which may further open up ways for Apple in the country.
On the flipside, Baidu is going to benefit immensely from this. The company’s wireless advertising may experience a boom given the wild popularity of Apple’s iPhone and the fact that Apple is on the verge of breaking a deal with the world’s largest wireless carriers based in China.
During the first quarter this year, Baidu already had an overwhelming share in the revenue generated from search engine market. Its revenue accounted for 78.5 percent of the overall revenue earned, with Google lagging a lot behind with its 16.6 percent. Baidu can still be used on iPhone but for now, it has to be downloaded as a separate app.
This may also be a part of Apple’s efforts to diminish Google’s influence on and in its products and to get independent of the search engine. We already heard about Apple’s plans of unveiling its own 3D Maps so that iOS users can then stop using Google Maps.
Source: Bloomberg
Courtesy: Redmondpie
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that Apple is on the verge of breaking a deal with the world’s largest wireless carriers based in China.