Tech Shout!

In a move to get an edge over Baidu.com Inc. in China, Google is intending to take over one or two Chinese firms and invest in about five more over the coming year.

Kai-Fu Lee, president of Google China said, “Over the next year, Google will acquire one or two companies in China, and invest in four to five companies.”

In China, though at present Google is much behind rival domestic leader Baidu.com, with the current initiative the Mountain View, California-based search giant does plan to gradually overtake their Chinese competitor.

Last month, on an earnings conference call Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said, “It’s a very good start and although we don’t think that this will result in an immediate huge success, we think that the tenacity of Google … will bring significant victories in China over the next few years,”

In January, Google invested an undisclosed amount in the Shenzhen-based peer-to-peer filing sharing site Xunlei Networking Technology. It also has a mobile search agreement with China Mobile Communications and the Chinese web portal Sina.