Friday, May 30, 2008

Baidu IM second beta next week

Rumor is that the second beta of Baidu Hi,
the instant messaging client, will be
released on June 5. Leaked versions suggest
that the new beta will feature a number of
new features:

1. Editing of custom user icons
2. Integration with the TTPlayer music player
3. Import/export of emoticons
4. Emoticon bundle trading
5. Automatically adding people with similar
interests to users' buddy lists
6. Integration with Baidu Post Bar, Baidu
Zhidao, Baidupedia and other products
7. Group voting (i.e. when a group leader posts
a poll, users can conveniently place votes)

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Oppenheimer raises PT to $333

from $315. The call came out at around 2:00
Eastern time today. "Perform" rating retained
- no upgrade due to valuation concerns.

Thailand's premier search engine entering China

Buzz Technologies Inc (OTC:BZTG) having just
claimed the title of Thailand's number 1 ad
supplier from rival Google has launched in China
competing against Baidu. The Company has added
to the range of Ads Services to Include

Text
Search (Text/Banner)
Widgets
Games
Video
IPTV
Mobile

and will soon launch Print and TV Advertising.

Consolidating sales in Foshan and Zhongshan

Baidu's Zhongshan and Foshan branches are
being merged into Shenzhen to form a
southern China sales center covering all
three cities.

Since 2005, Baidu has being building up its
own sales team in order to avoid paying
resellers, with key agency arrangements
in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou
being shut down. According to one source,
this new move is part of an effort to
consolidate Baidu's direct sales strategy.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Zhongsou loses music piracy lawsuit

Zhongsou, one of China’s largest internet
search engines, has been found guilty of
infringing record companies’ copyrights
by the Copyright Bureau of Hebei province
and Cangzhou city.

The authorities have ordered the company
to stop infringing immediately and pay
the maximum penalty of RMB 100,000
(£7,300), in what marks the first time
that administrative penalties have been
levied on a company running a music
delivery service.

The fine imposed is the largest fine
for copyright infringement in the
history of Hebei province, while three
computer servers belonging to Zhongsou
have also been forfeited.

Zhongsou provides a similar music
delivery service to those offered by
Yahoo China and Baidu, based on
delivering music to their users via
“deep links” to tracks on third party
sites.

This type of service was ruled to
infringe copyright by Chinese civil
courts in December 2007. IFPI Asia
regional director Leong Mayseey
says, “This should send a signal to
other similar infringing music
services. “China has the potential
to be one of the most dynamic digital
music markets in the world, but legal
services cannot compete when
household names like Zhongsou
deliberately break the law, abuse
the rights of others and seek to drive
advertising revenue by providing illegal
content. We cannot tolerate such abuse
of our members’ rights and other
internet companies that are breaking
the law should be warned that we are
coming after them next.”

The lawsuit by 5fad against Baidu
will be ruled on this month.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Positive Pali report

Baidu has rallied by viewing online gaming
``as a life saver and growth driver,'' Pali
Capital Inc. said in a report.

U.S. investors in particular have been
``skeptical'' about growth prospects of online
gaming in China, where the Internet fills a void
of ``limited'' entertainment options for young
people, New York-based analyst Tian X. Hou wrote
in a report this month.

``Online gamers comprise approximately 28 percent
of Internet users in China, versus 55 percent in
South Korea,'' the Pali report said. ``We believe
gamer growth will eventually catch up.''

Friday, May 16, 2008

Baidu to control expenditure

New CFO Jennifer Li says the company doesn't
plan any major strategic expansion except for
the Japan venture and the C2C business. Her
focus is going to be on increasing income,
reducing expenditure and improving employee
productivity. Baidu already has around 6700
employees. In essence management focus is
shifting from growth to aligning internal
management to existing services.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

TheStreet.com upgrades Baidu from sell to hold

Strengths : robust revenue growth, a solid
financial position with no debt and notable
return on equity.

Weakness: a premium valuation.

Its quick ratio of 2.98 demonstrates an
ability to cover short-term cash needs.
Gross profit margin is rather high at 70%.
A net profit margin of 26% compares
favorably to the industry average. Shares
have nearly tripled in price over the past
year, netting the stock a price-to-earnings
ratio of 132.92, which makes it much more
expensive than the industry average.
Baidu.com had been rated sell since March 20.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Baidu to attend two conferences

JP Morgan 36th annual technology conference
(05/19 and 05/20)
Goldman Sachs Ninth anuual Internet conference
(05/21 and 05/22)

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Baidu Japan visitors at 0.7 million in Feb

Visitor traffic to baidu.jp keeping a fast growing
momentum to reach 713,000 person-times in February
2008.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Free ad space to support Olympics

Beginning April 30, Baidu will open up
"golden placement" webpage ad locations
on its site, worth nearly RMB 10 mln,
as well as a number of promotional
resources, in order to cheer on this
summer's Olympic Games. At the same time,
Baidu will partner with a large number
of well-known domestic brands to form
a partnership to provide advertising
resources to alliance partners free of
charge in order to promote the Beijing
Olympics.

Baidu MP3 search, Post Bar, and the Baidu
logo banner will all be featured in a
series of Olympic promotional activities.