• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, January 21, 2014

Microsoft will allocate more resources this year to support the Chinese search market in an effort to grow the company's market share in the country.

Bing has 1,000 people in China, reports PC World. The strategy since last summer has been to add an additional 1,000 employees to work in research, enterprise services and customer support. The search engine holds less than 1% share of search activity in China.

Search market share only contributes a portion to the success or the failure of an engine in any specific country. Baidu, the majority stakeholder in China, won't likely share the search market on desktop or mobile. Some reports suggest that China's largest engine holds as much as a 75% market share.

Baidu accounted for roughly 7% of global paid-search spend in Q4 2013, about 6% of all impressions, and 27% of all clicks, among Covario clients. The search engine took 20% of the regional search budgets in Asia-Pacific during Q4 2013, with 75% going to Google, and 3% to Naver, per Covario.

Last year, Baidu acquired 91 Wireless Websoft for $1.8 billion last year to strengthen its hold on mobile and mobile gaming. Investment bank Jordan, Edmiston Group estimates the deal at one of the most valuable for the mobile media and technology sector in 2013.

"Map of China" photo from Shutterstock.