Google’s high-profile China chief Lee Kaifu is set to announce his resignation from the company.
Lee, who has been China president and a Google global vice-president since 2005, will go to work for a start-up, mainland media reports said.
Since setting up in China Google has taken about one-fifth of the search market from leader Baidu, but the latest figures show it lost 1.6 points to Baidu in Q2, and now trails with 19.8% of the market to Baidu’s 75.7%.
Taiwanese-born Lee joined the company from Microsoft in controversial fashion, sparking legal action against Google over a non-compete agreement he had signed with his former employer.
.