Google's return to China has made new progress. Beijing, February 7, The Information, a tech media from US, reported that after being absent from China in the past seven years, Google might be very close to return to China with China's largest Internet brand NetEase to launch Google Play store for China.
According to sources, NetEase has been negotiating with Google to set up a joint venture to operate Google Play Store in China, but the negotiations are not yet finished. There have been other Chinese technology companies and Google had contact, but did not achieve any results.
Google first set up a research and development center in China in 2005, appointed Kai-fu Lee as the first president of Greater China. Google stopped the "content review" in 2010 and moved its search business from mainland China to Hong Kong. At present, players in China have to use apk downloader to download apps instead of visiting Google Play Store.
Google left mainland China in 2010, after that it had made a number of ways to return to China. Google executives have said that a multinational company without entering the Chinese market is not complete.
Although Google Play did not successfully enter China in 2016, but in December 8, 2016 held in Beijing, Google Developer Conference, Google is considered to be interested in winning the Chinese developers. At the conference, Google also announced the online Google China developer site (developers.google.cn).