Web Analytics Packages & China

Shortly after I started my new career in Web Analytics, my friend T.R. Harrington from Darwin Marketing asked me which analytics tool I could recommend for companies in China. I could not answer his question then, and it is even harder to answer now.
During the last months I realized, that, although China has the second largest internet population in the world, when it comes to analytics and optimization it is still in its infancy. I attribute this gap to 2 key factors:

The lack of a mature e-Commerce environment: E-commerce sites earn the most immediate benefits from detailed web analytics. They are usually analytics pioneers since effective web analytics directly benefits their revenue.

The limited understanding of web marketing on the side of major advertisers, which are not aware of the opportunities for “performance based marketing” the web offers, and how analytics  opportunities exceed what is possible in traditional TV, newspaper & outdoor advertising.

Luckily at least the second factor is slowly changing, which is why my role exists and why Baidu's stock price is continuing to rise. But since the e-commerce pioneers did not prepare the field for us, many basic tools and lessons are still missing. I am not aware of any major analytics vendor (like Omniture or WebTrends) that has servers in China. Which is important since the slow intercontinental connections and Great Firewall can impact data tracking. Having used both packages, it becomes obvious that they are lacking in other areas as well. Omniture for example cannot correctly read search terms typed into Baidu, while WebTrends does not allow a regional analysis of Chinese traffic (and lists Chinese cities that no one in China has heard of). We will be running a trial with Google Analytics in the next weeks and I will let you know my impressions. But until then, please let me know your experience with Analytics tools in China in the comments section.