Baidu fends off Google in China

  • Email a Friend
  • Print Page
By Simon Burns
Apr 26, 2008 10:22 AM
Tags: Baidu | fends | off | Google | in | China

Chinese internet search leader Baidu continues to grow, despite strong pressure from Google..

The firm's first-quarter results show revenues doubling and profits up more than 70 per cent.

Baidu reported quarterly revenue of US$82m, up 108.4 per cent from the same period a year ago. Net income was US$20.9m, an increase of 71.5 per cent.

Baidu holds a share of the China search market estimated at about 60 per cent, while Google's Chinese and international websites receive about 25 per cent. There has been little change in the two companies' market shares recently.

Unlike the much larger Google, Baidu derives the bulk of its revenue from the paid placement of search results.

Baidu's 'online marketing customers' increased 43.8 per cent to 161,000, and profit per customer was up 44 per cent to about US$510, the company said.

As the battle with Google hots up, Baidu has doubled its quarterly research and development spending to US$7.3m.

The company launched a Japanese edition of its search engine last year and has fired off a constant stream of other initiatives, including a Wikipedia clone and an instant messaging service.

Baidu spent US$4.3m on its Japanese search service during the quarter, which included a relaunch.

Baidu Japan's audience doubled during the quarter, but remains small at just one per cent of the audience for the range of services offered at local search market leader Yahoo.co.jp, according to data gathered by online statistics firm Alexa.

"Instrumental to our growth were the ceaseless efforts of our salesforce and customer service teams who continued to deliver strong results despite a long Chinese New Year holiday and severe snow storms across large parts of China," said Baidu chairman Robin Li.

Baidu also announced an exclusive deal under which users of major ISP China Netcom will be redirected to a Baidu search page when they enter a nonexistent or incorrectly-formed domain name.

China Netcom has 20 million broadband internet subscribers out of a total of more than 120 million fixed line phone and internet customers.

Copyright © 2009 vnunet.com


 
Comments

Be the first to comment on this article.
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
Comment:
Want to participate in the discussion?
Or log in now to comment
 
 
Top Stories
Basslink lights up with commercial traffic
Calls for second independent cable.
 
Bluetooth "Big Brother" tracks festival-goers
Might have retail and security applications.
 
Huawei considers Australian 4G lab
But dollars depend on demand.
 
Exclusive Data Centre - Sponsored Content by Microsoft

Latest Comments

""The researchers will only track the devices' MAC address -- a number that identifies each ..."
by forcedregsucks Jul 6, 2009 9:34 PM
 
" Erin Kutz wrote: A tiny fraction of those who use the fast-growing social network phenomenon ..."
by Slatts Jul 6, 2009 8:58 AM
 
"I'm thinking there was some robust discussion in the Sawers household when Sir John got home ..."
by Slatts Jul 6, 2009 8:41 AM
 
"Well... that seems disturbing but I just can't seem to put my finger on why. I think it just ..."
by Slatts Jul 6, 2009 8:35 AM
 
"I'm kind of assuming that the water was used in water cooled condensers for the air-conditioning...."
by Slatts Jul 2, 2009 8:54 PM

Polls

What will you do when your iPhone contract comes up for renewal?




   |   View results
Retain my current service provider
  11%
 
Switch to a cheaper plan
  18%
 
Switch to a better network
  17%
 
Switch to whoever offers free tethering
  18%
 
Change handset altogether
  35%
TOTAL VOTES: 208

Vote