In an effort to match Chinese rival Baidu.com's local search offering, Google has launched a beta service - Google Bendi - that allows Chinese web users to search for businesses in their local area, similar to Google Local launched in the U.S. last year, reports ZDNet UK (via paidcontent). The Chinese service provides information about businesses in over 170 Chinese cities, according to MacWorld on Monday. AFX News reports that Google's beta service includes maps, provided in partnership with Chinese web-based mapping firm Mapabc.com.

Google has recently lost market share in China to Baidu, which already has a local search offering and is popular particularly among young internet users, according to a recent report, which claimed that Baidu holds the largest market share in three of China's major cities: Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
orking at Google.

Google is also facing competition from Yahoo, which bought a stake in local e-commerce giant Alibaba.com last month.

China's search market is expected to reach three billion yuan by 2007, compared with 700 million last year, according to some forecasts (1 dollar = 8.1 yuan).