Google likely to call it quits in China on Monday

If the sources close to the development are to be believed, the Internet search giant will call it quits in the country.

According to a report by Shanghai-based China Business News, Google is likely to announce its plans to end operations in China on March 22.

Even Financial Times, quoting a source, had earlier this week reported that the company will most likely pull out of China and it has already made a detailed plan of an orderly exit.

Possible exit worries users, investors
Google search engine controls nearly 30 percent of the market share in China, which has 384 million Internet users, according to China Internet Network Information Center.

Even if the search giants fails to reach a consensus over censorship and shuts down its local search engine in China, it is expected to retain some of its business operations in the country.

There are hundreds of officials in China who use Gmail. Further, an estimated 12 million citizens use Google Maps on a regular basis. Even Google Reader and Google Scholar are widely used for academic purposes.

Ma Yuanye, a 55-year-old biologist in Kunming in southwest China, was quoted by Washington Post as saying, “Without Google, our academic research will be seriously affected. If Google is blocked, we will see nothing but darkness."

Google’s exit will surely leave its rivals like Baidu and Microsoft in a better position to dominate the Chinese market, and this is worrying many of its shareholders.

A worried Google shareholder, Rob Lutts, chief investment officer for Cabot Money Management, told Inverstor.com, It's mind-boggling. Will Google exit pay off in the long run? That's a major question mark.”

Google to retain other businesses in China
Even if the search giants fails to reach a consensus over censorship and shuts down its local search engine, google.cn, in China, it is expected to retain some of its business operations in the country like its Android smartphone, its technology unit, etc.

The company runs local search engine as a joint venture with a domestic partner in the country. But Google has employed a large part of the workforce in a separate company, which is expected to carry on business operations in China.

Google Information Technology is likely to continue work and retain all research and development staff.

“Google is likely to move features it now offers on the local search engine on to google.com and continue developing its offering for the Chinese market," said Cao Junbo, of iResearch in Beijing.

But there may be a possibility that Chinese authorities make it difficult for the search giant to operate in the country, thus forcing it to exit completely.