Will Google crush Baidu in its quest for Asian domination?

Every journey begins with a small step. Google's top executives obviously don't seem to agree. Perhaps to them, the bigger the step, the quicker the journey and the faster it is to reach the goal and what bigger step to take in Asia than by invading the biggest nation.

A two-prong attack on China's mobile and internet market ensures a steady stamping of Google's footprint in the region and leaves butterflies in Baidu's stomach.

Google has teamed up with China Mobile, world's biggest cell-phone operator by customers to offer a mobile-phone search service in an attempt to attract more customers.

China Mobile will include a Google search box on its mobile Web site to help users find news, games, images and videos, the companies said in a statement. A trial version of the service is already up and running and will be expanded further this year.

The decision for a venture was motivated by China Mobile's drop in average spending of its clients. China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou hopes that sales growth would improve by offering services such as video downloads on handsets. Similarly, the deal also allows Google, owner of the world's most-used Internet search site, to broaden its market reach for its search engine.

China is the world's second-largest Internet market after the U.S. and had 132 million subscribers by the end of last year.

Not contented with that offering, Google upped the stakes by investing in a Chinese company that helps users download online videos and software in a bid to take market share from local competitor Baidu.com.

Google will be a "strategic investor" in the company, Sean Zou, chief executive officer at Shenzhen Xunlei Network Technology, said at a briefing in Beijing.

Google, whose share of China's market is one-third the size of Beijing-based Baidu's, gains access to the 120 million customers Xunlei says use its Web site. Google China President Lee Kai-Fu believes the popularity of online videos will help the company win more customers in a Web market that may be the world’s biggest in two years. The U.S. company bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in November.

"Xunlei is Google's YouTube in China," said Liu Bin, an Internet analyst with Beijing-based research company BDA China. "Xunlei could help Google catch Baidu as more and more people search for videos on the Internet," Lee added, stopping short of confirming that Google has invested $5 million for a stake in Xunlei.

Google's harmless ripples have turned into offensive waves and Baidu must be desperate to stop Google from taking over its prime market. However, if they do step up their game, then exciting times will be ahead for us when these two giants go head to head. The fierce competition can only be good for the consumers, provided that things, especially price, do not spiral out of control.

Can Baidu continue to reign supreme or will Google be the new king of China's wireless market?