Google aims for China launch of Google Play

BEIJING/HONG KONG: Google, part of Alphabet Inc, aims to launch the China version of its Google Play smartphone app store next year, according to people familiar with the matter, its first major foray in the market since ending localised product support in 2010.
The Google Play app store would be set up specifically for China, and not connected to overseas versions of Google Play, two of the people said.
Google intends to comply with Chinese laws on filtering content that might be viewed as sensitive by the ruling Communist Party, and laws requiring the company to store the app store's data within the country, those two people said.
A Singapore-based Google spokesman declined to comment. Google largely pulled its services out of China five years ago after refusing to continue self-censoring its search results.
It has maintained a limited presence in the world´s biggest smartphone market, but most of its services, including Play, have been rendered borderline inaccessible.
The US company would use a successful app store as a launch pad to get other products and services into the country, said two people familiar with Google's thinking.
However, the company has not settled on which product might come next, they said.
Chief Executive Sundar Pichai and other top brass have made no secret that the company wants to get back into China, and Google Play will likely be its first foray.
But critics say Google has lost basically all ground in most of its major services, especially search and video streaming, to Chinese players.
For Google, having a product in China would be a symbolic gesture to show that the company values the market, said Shen Si, CEO of Chinese mobile advertising company Papaya Mobile and a former Google employee.
"If they want to break the ice with the Chinese market then they have to pick a pretty important product to make available to the Chinese people and make it really localised," she said.
"Google Play would be a really good product for that because it´s not very sensitive."
Google has had its employees working hard in China to lay the ground for the app store´s launch, said one of the people with knowledge of executives' plans.