Screenshot of Baidu’s mapping service showing its newest additions.

Chinese internet search engine and mapping company, Baidu, has launched its webmapping services beyond its Chinese borders and into Japan, Thailand, South Korea and Singapore. The move have seen analysts suggesting that Baidu is confident it can compete with its biggest mapping competitors outside of China, such as Alphabet’s Google Maps.

Baidu (not to be confused with the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System) is China’s most widely-used web services provider, and 2015 its doman www.baidu.com was ranked the fifth most popular website worldwide.

While the move into other parts of Asia could be seen merely as an offering to allow Chinese citizens who travel into these popular areas to access Baidu’s maps abroad, investors are seeing this as a larger ploy to take on the global mapping market, as well as integration with Baidu’s other web and media services.

The move comes after an announcement from Baidu in 2015 detailing an agreement with HERE to provide Baidu with maps outside of its home market.