Closing this blog

My target has been hit, and I no longer hold but a small
stake in Baidu. I believe the company's true potential is
to be a $50 billion company (Google's US revenue
multiplied by the China/US population ratio), and hence
around a $300 billion market cap. But my goals are met,
and so this newsfeed ends here.

Mirae Asset raises PT to $645

Street high.

Rakuten e-mall to open by mid 2010

Baidu VP Ren Xuyang said on March 12th.

e-book company to be launched

On the lines of the online video startup. Baidu is talking to
book publishers for content for an e-book business. The
company is also looking for a CEO for the venture, which
would likely be a VC-funded startup.

Partial chinese character search

Baidu now supports searches on partial Chinese characters,
since statistical analysis shows many searches use only parts
of complicated characters. This requires disassembly of the
character patterns.

Youa GM resigns

Li Mingyuan, GM of the company's Baidu YouA
B2C and C2C e-commerce site, has resigned, citing
personal reasons and a desire to continue his studies.
Cai Hu, former GM of Baidu Union, replaces Li as
general manager. Cai, in turn, will be replaced as
GM of Baidu Union by Chu Dachen, GM of Baidu's
business analytics department. The transition is
set for April.

Citi raises PT to $630 from $550

New street high. Rating buy. Based on FY 2011 P/E of
40.

Catherine Leung believes robust e-commerce growth,
aided by Chinese government policies, and better
monetization through Phoenix Nest help Baidu. Total
e-commerce transactions almost doubled this year from
the last, and make up about 2% of all retail transactions.
This is comparable to the US in 2004.

Baidu Union raising ad rates for floating window ads

The current maximum of RMB 0.05 per click is seemingly too
low. The model is still under testing, and the click rates are
ten times higher than for other display ads.

A new client-end department

combining the client-end software and software business
departments with the TTPlayer department. Baidu is
looking for somebody to head the department.

Source: Pacific Epoch

UBS downgrades to Neutral, leaves PT of $567 unchanged

Assumes a 50% chance of Google leaving China. If it doesn't,
per UBS a fair price is $522. If it does then the PT jumps to
$612. The analyst, Wenlin Li, thinks Google will drag the issue
out since it is now a US/China political issue.

Baidu Union ends cooperation with some directory sites

Baidu will be partnering with just three or four major directory
sites, terminating the rest for poor quality.