The Center will share Maxthon’s innovative technology with other Chinese companies
BEIJING, Nov. 9 — Maxthon International Ltd. ( http://www.maxthon.com ) has announced the establishment of the largest browser research and development center in China. CEO Jeff Chen, accompanied by dozens of business partners and user representatives, announced the creation of the Maxthon R&D Center at a press conference in Beijing, the location of the center.
The center has an initial capital investment of more than RMB2 million (approximately US$300,000). Maxthon’s goal is to develop an R&D center capable of competing internationally within two years, Chen said. The center will provide support to Chinese-made browsers in addition to those developed by Maxthon itself. It will also expedite the development of a variety of Internet technologies in China, including Web page display and security.
The center currently has a professional team of more than 30 researchers and developers, who have obtained two patents and who have several other new technologies in the patent process. The technologies will be applied in the near future to provide internet users a higher quality browsing experience. Plans call for the recruitment of other technical experts to form a staff of 100.
According to Net Applications’ latest research, the global market share of Maxthon is 1.55%, which exceeds that of Firefox 2 and comes close to the market share held by the Opera browser. In China Maxthon has 22% of the browser market, making it the 2nd most popular browser behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The China Internet Network Information Center reports Chinese Internet users exceeded 338 million in the first half of 2009. These numbers translate to about 9 million Maxthon users in China alone.
“The strategic importance of the browser as the gateway to the Internet,” Chen said, “is obvious in view of the substantial resources invested by Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Firefox in the last 2 years.”
All of those companies have either introduced a new browser during the period or have upgraded established browsers.
“In the view of many people,” Chen added, “Maxthon could be very ordinary as a business focused solely on browser development. That’s why we will assist Chinese Webware developers to join us as part of the ‘Innovation Base’ of Chinese-made Internet software.
“The unbundling of Internet Explorer from the European Windows editions in 2010 will break the Monopoly of IE and bring new opportunities to the worldwide browser market,” Chen said. “And the establishment of the Maxthon R&D Center will inevitably lead to a new wave of competition in the local browser market.”
——MaxthonGuy