Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Baidu launching wireless search in Japan

"We are very excited to launch wireless search in Japan,
where we believe there is huge demand for a high quality
wireless search service," said Xuyang Ren, Baidu's
Vice President of Marketing and Business Development.
"With the launch of this beta wireless search service we
hope to give users in Japan a convenient tool for finding
the information they need. We look forward to developing
this service further and tuning it to user preferences over
the coming months."

Memo alerts and instant screen clear added to Baidu 'Hi'

Oppenheimer maintains perform rating

after estimating Q3 results. Equivalent to neutral.


Sunday, September 27, 2009

RMB 100 million ad promotion

Baidu plans to give away display space valued at a
total of RMB 100 million in the sponsored links
section of its image search results to purchasers
of its search promotion service before October 31,
reports Nanfang Daily. Purchasers will receive
display space valued at up to RMB 10,000 each
for 60 days, the report said.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Search database has quadrupled in 6 months

On the back of 'Aladdin' which trolls the deep
web and also collects dynamically changing
information.

B2C partnership with 20 major brands

Retailer Suning, Samsung, Haier, sportswear brand
Li-Ning, glasses maker Baodao Optical, Japanese
paint-maker Nissen, L'Oreal, online medicine
retailer Yaofang.com, Phoenix New Media internet
portal iFeng.com, and educational services provider
New Oriental, among others. Baidu provides
search engine marketing (SEM) services to the
brands.

Monday, September 21, 2009

CNNIC report on search engine usage in H1 2009

The 2009 Report on Chinese Search User Behavior,
released today by the China Internet Network
Information Center (CNNIC), shows that as of the
end of June 2009, China was home to 235 mln search
engine users, up by 59.49 mln users, or 34%, from
June 2008. Search engine use among Chinese
Internet users rose to 69.4%. By the end of 2009, the
report predicts, the number of search engine users in
China will rise to 260 mln. City and township users and
rural users of search engines split 76.6% and 23.4%
respectively, with 180 mln search engine users coming
from city and township areas, and approximately
55 mln from rural regions. 74.1% of city and township
Internet users and 57.5% of rural Internet users use
search engines. As of the end of June, China was home
to approximately 155 mln mobile Internet users.
Mobile search was the second most commonly used
mobile Internet application, with 26.2% penetration,
or 40.74 mln users, accounting for 17.4% of overall
search engine use. Of the 56.77 mln predicted users
of 3G in H2 2009, up to 21.74 mln, or 38.3%, could
use 3G mobile search services.

Baqidu had 92.9% market penetration, and Google 32.7%.
Sohu's search engine Sogou, China Yahoo, Tencent (0700.HK)
Soso, Microsoft Bing, and Netease Youdao had 26.9%, 22.0%,
13.0%, 6.3%, and 5.1% penetration, respectively. (Penetration
is calculated as the percentage of all search users users who
had made use of a given search engine.) 77.2% of users said
Baidu was their first choice for search, with 12.7% choosing
Google, 3.1% choosing Soso, 2.4% choosing Sogou, and
1.6% choosing China Yahoo.

Music was the most commonly
searched form of non-text content, with 39.5% of users
having searched for music. Movies, videos, and games
followed, with 30.3%, 13.7%, and 16.5% of users,
respectively. Baidu led in user loyalty, with 94.8% of its users.
Google, Soso, China Yahoo, and Sogou followed with
80%, 78%, 75%, and 53% respectively. User loyalty is
determined by the percentage of users who most commonly
used a given brand six months ago who continue to prefer
the brand. 67.2% of search engine users said they
"never click" search advertisements. 31.4% said they
did click.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Phoenix Nest transition to be drawn out

VP of commercial operations, Chen Haoyu, says once
half the customers migrate to Phoenix Nest, keywords
would be gradually withdrawn from the old system.
The full transition is expected to take a few years.

Baidu is not planning to double its sale force soon, and
would gradually grow marketing, as per Chen. The sales
team is currently 3600 strong.

Tieup with Xinhua

Baidu is developing a multimedia storage room for
Xinhua News Agency in a strategic partnership
formed September 17, reports TechWeb.com.cn.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Recruiting 600 fresh grads

Baidu plans to begin its 2009 campus tour to recruit
roughly 600 graduates for its 14 core technology
departments, reports Sohu. Baidu COO Ye Peng
plans to speak to Beijing-based grads on
September 15.

Deutsche bank reiterates buy, PT $426

Monday, September 14, 2009

Baidu might be getting into the mobile browser market

The firm is recruiting two engineers with experience
on mobile OS-es such as Symbian, Windows and others.

GS reiterates conviction buy, raises PT to $455

Highest on the street. Firm believes Baidu's coverage
ratios will rise to match Google and Yahoo at around
50 to 60%. Currently it is at around 20%, and GS
believes Phoenix Nest will help improve the ratio.
Paid search in China is expected to rise to 0.07% of
GDP by 2013, with Baidu maintaining its market
share.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Robin Li is in the US for a two-week visit

On September 14, Mr. Li will speak at the
U.S.-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum
in Chicago. He will also visit U.S. high-tech companies
including Amazon and Twitter, and speak at
Stanford University and Columbia University.
According to Baidu's spokesperson, Mr. Li will also
try to attract top technology talent to work at Baidu.

Those in or around the Bay area (CA) can catch him
at Stanford on Sep 23rd, Wednesday, at 4:30 PM. He
will be speaking at Hewlett 200, the Electrical Engineering
building next to the Computer Science one, Gates.

Stanford Event

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Over 800,000 keywords moved over to Phoenix Nest

Companies are being informed of the switchover to
Phoenix Nest, with keywords getting completely
taken out of the old system.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Tie-up with CAS

Baidu is donating servers to the Chinese Academy of Sciences
(CAS), China's prestigious research oversight organization.
The company plans to work with CAS to develop new computing
technology to suit China's massive scaling needs.

Crackdown on foreign music: Ministry of Culture

China is planning to culturally sensor online music, with
contents to be vetted by the Ministry of Culture. Looks
like political and porn content are likely to be filtered.
The MoC explicitly stated music content provided by
Baidu is in accord with the directive.

Pali research, meanwhile, says Baidu is going to be
affected by the action since, per them, 80% of Baidu's
traffic is from MP3 search.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Baidu added to Dow Jones BRIC-50 Index

Will be part of the index from Friday, Sep 18th.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Management tool released on Youa

Marbridge daily report:

Chinese search company Baidu has officially released a
frequent-customer management tool for sellers on YouA,
Baidu's C2C and B2C e-commerce platform, to help sellers
establish relationships with their customers. Customers
who subscribe to information updates on various products
can interact in real-time with sellers of interest. The tool
also enables sellers to see which customers bought goods
through their store, along with each customer's detailed
transaction information. One of the tool's marketing
features allows sellers to select up to 9 goods at a time
for promotion to previous customers. The tool also
includes automated contact features that will send
customers birthday wishes, after-sales reminders and
other automated greetings.

Linekong teams up with Baidu to promote online game

The game is hero, a turn-based online game, with
a historical motif.

New online ad management system rolled out

Baidu has opened the official site for its free online
ad management system at adm.baidu.com for
alpha testing, limited to members of Baidu
Union. The tools available include ad placement
management and adcontent hosting.

Ginde wins lawsuit against Baidu

The Ginde Plastic Pipe Industry Group (www.ginde.com)
won a lawsuit against Baidu, for allowing searches of its
brand name to return articles with negative recommendations.
The Beijing Haidian District People's court considered that
infringing on Ginde's trademark rights, though Baidu argued
its search technology automatically matches queries to links
users have visited with high frequency.

The court did not impose a fine or order compensation to be
paid. Baidu is to display an apology on its website for 3 days,
instead. Baidu is appealing the ruling.

Analysys: Baidu/Google tied in mobile search market share

In terms of volume, both Baidu and Google are at around
25% with smaller players 3GYY, Yicha and Easou all
around 10% each, in Q2 2009. Total search volume was
around 272 million requests, increasing 120% year over
year. That compares to 10 billion requests for computer-based
online search in China.

Page views reached 909 million in the same period, and here
Baidu's share is at 33.7%, well ahead of Google's 19%. Google's
traffic is likely from tie-ups with China Mobile, and Sina. Baidu
has tied up with Nokia, Samsung, Haier and China Unicom.

UBS reiterates neutral rating

Price target at $380.