GOOGLE Inc is shutting its online music download service in the Chinese mainland next month because of pressure from local rivals such as Baidu Inc and Tencent's QQ.

The service, available only to computers with an Internet address in the mainland, will close on October 19. Users of Music Search will be able to log in and download their stored playlists until then.In its Chinese-language company blog, the US-based search giant admitted that the music website's impact had been "less than expected."As with Google's core online search business, the music service found it difficult to compete with its domestic rivals.

By the end of second quarter, Google had 15.7 percent of the online search market in China, the world's biggest Internet market with 538 million computer users. That was far behind market leader Baidu, which had a 78.6 percent market share, according to Analysys International, a Beijing-based IT research firm.

Google's market share declined from more than 30 percent to 15 percent after it moved its China servers from the mainland to Hong Kong in 2010. Google's music website made its debut three years ago, offering free and legal music content to Chinese consumers.Later, Baidu and Tencent began similar services which gradually came to dominate the domestic online music market.?

滬江英語快訊：目前，用戶訪問谷歌音樂搜索服務，頁面已提示，“谷歌音樂搜索服務已經(jīng)關(guān)閉，頁面提醒用戶在10月19日之前登錄并下載保存播放列表?！敝链?，域名下近一段時期將只提供時惠、購物、翻譯三個服務。停止音樂搜索是谷歌方面做出的決定，流量下降是谷歌關(guān)閉音樂搜索的最重要原因。谷歌音樂搜索的確沒有達到預期的效果，尤其是谷歌在2010年初決定退出中國后，谷歌流量下降的非常厲害，音樂搜索也受到了很大的影響，并且谷歌中國也沒有花太多精力在音樂搜索上。