Google has sold its 2.6 percent stake in Baidu.com, China's most-used search engine, reports Bloomberg News. Google sold 749,625 Baidu shares. It had paid $5 million for the stake in June 2004; the shares were worth $60.1 million based on the June 22 closing price. Baidu is Google's main rival in China, though Yahoo is also a challenger. "It has always been our goal to grow our own successful business in China and we are very focused on that," Google spokesman Jon Murchinson said in the statement.

At the end of last year, Baidu had about a 56.6 percent share of China's search market, in terms of the number of users, while Google had a 32.8 percent share and Yahoo controlled 5 percent, according to IResearch. But just-released first-quarter revenue-share figures from Beijing-based Analysys International put Google in third place with 13 percent, Yahoo second with 21 percent and Baidu leading with 44 percent of revenue.

"As long as Google had a stake in Baidu, competition couldn't get too serious," Edward Yu, CEO of Analysys told Bloomberg. "Competition is now getting serious."