Baidu has announced a number of important new product and service launches. In October, the company stated that it will enter China’s consumer-to-consumer ecommerce market at unspecified date in 2008. In January this year, Baidu entered the Japanese search market with the official launch of Baidu Japan and in February Baidu Hi, an instant messaging service was launched. Baidu is the leading search engine in China with a 60% market share. Google is a distant second with 25.9% and Yahoo China is third with 9.6%. Baidu claims to have indexed over 740 million webpages, 80 million images and 10 million multimedia files. Baidu.com places 19th on Alexa’s Global Top 500, a list which ranks websites based on user traffic.
Beijing-based Baidu was founded in 2000 and had 6,000 employees at the end of 2007. Baidu listed on NASDAQ in August 2005. In 2007, the company recorded revenues of US$239 million which is a 108% increase over the same figure in 2006. Net income was US$86 million – also a 108% increase over the previous year. Baidu’s market capitalization is approximately US$10 billion.
Source: BAIDU PROFILE published in April 2008 by Business Strategies Group www.bsgasia.com
BIIA Newsletter April – 2008 Issue
