Lee quits as president of Google China

BEIJING, Sept. 5 -- Google Inc, owner of the most used Internet search engine in the world, said on Friday its China president Kai-Fu Lee will leave the company to start his own business in Beijing.

Boon-Lock Yeo, director of Google's Shanghai engineering office, and John Liu, who heads the sales team in China, will take on Lee's responsibilities, the company said in a statement on Friday.

Lee disclosed that he would form his own venture soon.

Lee's departure will not affect Google's China business too much, said industry insiders. His successors will still face the challenge of competing in a market dominated by Chinese rival Baidu Inc, as well as online censorship.

"Google is more popular than four years ago. It is rising but still lags behind Baidu," said Jiang Qiping, secretary general, center for informatization studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

According to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International, Baidu held 62 percent of China's search market in the second quarter while Google held 29 percent.

In June, Google was criticized by the Chinese government for providing links to pornographic and violent material. Some of the company's services became inaccessible to domestic web users for hours.

Lee joined Google in 2005 after seven years at Microsoft, where he was a computer scientist and corporate vice-president. His move to Google triggered a lawsuit from Microsoft, in which the company sued Lee and Google.