Do Google’s search suggestions vary by country and language?

Blogger Akky Akimoto compiled the above table suggested by Google across 9 languages when you type in a single letter. (See Akky’s blog for a more readable version)

A – Amusing examples

“a” – “Amazon” in English, German, Italian and Korean. In French, however, it suggests “ANPE”, the unemployment agency.

“b” – “bebo” in English, German and Italian, but “baidu” in simplified Chinese.

“m” – “myspace” in English, German and Italian. In Japanese, however, social network “mixi”.

B – Biggest winners

“facebook” turns up for “f” in 6 languages (the other 3 turn up “firefox”)

“hotmail” turns up for “h” in 7 languages (All apart from simplified Chinese and Russian)

“Wiki” or “Wikipedia” turns up in 7 languages. (In China, where Wikipedia is banned, the suggestion for “w” is Google rival Baidu. In Russia you get mail.ru)

C- Caveats

1 – English, German and Italian are identical. I don’t think Germans and Italians who type “v” are looking for “Verizon Wireless”!

2 – In China, Japan, Korea and Russia, Google is not the market leading search engine and many users would not use the roman alphabet.

Any other thoughts on this table of results?