By Herman Lai, posted May 19, 2011 at 11:38 PM, 379 views,

Zuckerberg Planning To Visit China Again?

Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg went to China (Beijing) at the end of last year to negotiate a partnership with some Chinese internet companies to expand Facebook globally. Yesterday, Facebook COO hints that Zuckerberg is planning his second trip to China. So what Zuckerberg might do in this second trip?

As Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told Reuters:

“Our company mission is really clear, which is we want to connect the whole world, and it’s impossible to think about connecting the whole world right now without also connecting China.”

She also added, the timing and the agenda of the trip was undetermined, but that Zuckerberg, who is currently studying Chinese, would probably return this year.

As Mark Zuckerberg visited to China last year, the number of Chinese users on Facebook had dramatically increased. Apparently, those people are actually using VPN or proxies to access Facebook.

According to market research firm eMarketer (via Reuters), Facebook is expected to generate roughly $4 billion in ad advertising revenue in 2011, up from $1.86 billion a year earlier. If Facebook successfully enters in China, this figure is very likely to be achieved.

Although entering China is extremely hard, but it is also the largest market in the global, therefore it cannot be ignored apparently. With Zuckerberg previous trip in China, he not only met the head of Baidu, but also including Sina and Alibaba. As Sina got its own social network “Sina Weibo”, there is no need for Facebook to create another one. If partnership with Baidu, seems to be a great choice. But on Wednesday, eight New York residents sued Baidu and the Chinese government, accusing the search engine of censoring pro-democracy speech. Therefore, is this still a good choice to partner with Baidu?

Furthermore, Bloomberg now reports that Facebook is in exploratory talks with unnamed partners, but that nothing has been signed yet. We are guessing, is the upcoming trip planning for a confirmation with this unnamed partner? If they successfully entered China, will they end up like Google?

Source: Reuters