"China has great potential for mobile search since there are far more cell phone users than Internet users in the country," said Zhang Dongming, research director of BDA China.

According to government figures, China was home to 123 million Internet users at the end of last June, up from 111 million in 2005. But the country's mobile phone users surpassed 462 million last year, creating a huge pool of consumers that few Internet companies could afford to lose.

Last November, Microsoft agreed to provide its Live Search services to China Telecom. Baidu, Google's biggest rival in China, also reached agreements earlier last year with Nokia and Haier to offer Baidu's mobile search products on several Chinese cell phone models. Other Chinese search engines such as Cgogo, iAsk and sogou are also offering mobile search services.

"I think mobile search may have the same importance as Internet search in the future due to its unique mobility and the relatively low cost of facilities," said Lee, noting that the true potential of the mobile search market may be undervalued by many analysts.

According to domestic firm CCID Consulting, the revenue of China's mobile search market was expected to reach 173 million yuan in 2006, an increase of 642.3 percent over the previous year. The firm estimated that revenue would hit 758 million yuan by 2008.

Another consulting firm, iResearch, is even more bullish in its predictions. It said that the revenue of China's mobile search market would surpass 1.35 billion yuan in 2008 and would hit 3.1 billion in 2010.

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