Hulu investor Providence Equity Partners is pumping $50 million into a new online video company set up by Chinese Internet search giant Baidu.
The news comes roughly 7 weeks after Baidu confirmed plans to established a new independent company to provide licensed, advertising-supported online video content to Chinese Internet users. → Read More
Baidu, the leading search engine operator in China, this afternoon reported blow-out financial results for the fourth quarter of 2009. The company’s Q4 profit rose 48.2% to 427.9 million yuan (approx. $62.7 million), or $1.80 a share. Revenue rose 40% to 1.26 billion yuan, or about $184.7 million, compared to the same period a year ago.
In the wake of Google’s stand against censorship of its search engine in China and its consideration to cease business operations in the country altogether, Baidu – to Wall Street’s surprise – raised its sales forecasts for the first quarter of 2010, projecting total revenues ranging from $176 million to $181 million, representing a 48% to 52% year-over-year increase. → Read More
Chinese search leader Baidu and Rakuten, Japan’s largest e-commerce player, have announced an agreement to jointly invest US$50 million over three years in a joint venture to build a huge online ‘B2B2C’ shopping mall for Chinese Internet users.
Under the terms of the agreement, Rakuten will become majority shareholder of the new, yet to be named joint venture (51%) with Baidu owning the remaining 49%. → Read More
There’s something going on over at Baidu, the leading search engine provider in China. A mere ten days after the company’s chief operating officer Peng Ye bailed for ‘personal reasons’, Baidu this morning announced that chief technology officer Yinan Li is also calling it quits.
For personal reasons.
Li was with the company only for 14 months, and his departure was announced in a two-sentence statement earlier this morning. The man’s biography page on the Baidu website still shows up when you do a search, but his picture and bio have been wiped off the site. → Read More
Most publications, including us, noted yesterday that if Google has to lose its $600 million in revenues from China by pulling out of the country, then at the very least it’s won a lot in brand and integrity points by the public, English-language and scorched-earth way they did it. Google’s halo is so bright that even now Valley thought leaders are aghast at the idea that a publicly-traded, for-profit company could have had more than just an ethical motive at play.
Today, as the story has unfolded, Chinese residents have openly “mourned” the loss of Google by putting flowers and candles out at the company’s Beijing headquarters. (Picture above was taken by Junyu Wang.) That’s striking for two reasons. First, it shows the Chinese government’s grasp on censorship has already measurably slipped. And second, it shows that Google’s moral-high ground stance was even effective within some parts of China.
But there’s a third—and potentially more impactful—way this move could play into Google’s market position long term. → Read More
Lots of interesting commentary in the wake of Google’s bombshell blog post from yesterday about its decision to stop censoring its search results and possibly withdrawing from the Chinese market all together after being hit with severe cyber attacks on its core infrastructure. You can follow the conversation on Techmeme, but there’s one item that just hit the news aggregator that I felt compelled to set straight.
Thomas Crampton correctly notes that Baidu.tw, supposedly owned by Chinese search leader Baidu, is currently getting forwarded to the Google Taiwan homepage (albeit only when you put www in front of the domain name). But it’s false to assume that the site was hacked: the domain name never directed to a Baidu property and is even entirely out of the company’s control. There’s a number of ways you can tell. → Read More
Chinese Internet search giant Baidu this morning announced plans to set up a new independent company to provide licensed, advertising-supported online video content to Chinese Internet users.
Reuters earlier this week caught wind of the company’s plans to launch the Hulu-like destination site, and also reported that Hulu investor Providence Equity Partners was going to have a significant stake in the venture. → Read More
[Netherlands] I’m not sure if this qualifies as domain name squatting but the motivation is the same.
Dutch web design company Baidu Europe – not to be confused with the Chinese search engine of a similar name – has put their domain names, brand names and trademarks up for sale on eBay. The starting bid has been set at $250,000 but the company is aiming for a much bigger payout of $1.7 million dollars after the 10 day auction has ended. However, at the time of posting – day 3 – not a single bid has been received. → Read More
Yesterday, China’s Ministry of Culture (MoC), warned that it would strengthen checks and policing of online music content. The MoC said that search engines, which have been a source of pirated music in China, can only provide search information for tracks from legitimate music companies. This move may pose as a serious problem for China’s most popular search engine Baidu, which has long faced legal issues surrounding its index of pirated music.
According to the report, the MoC is requiring that companies providing online music streams or downloads gain approval as “Internet culture companies,” and only companies that have directly obtained broadcasting or licensing rights can apply for approval. Imported music that is already broadcast online in China but has not been approved must be submitted to the MoC before December 31, 2009. → Read More
Google China has taken the beta label off its dedicated, free MP3 search engine now that the local Google branch announced deals with all four major music labels (Warner, Universal, EMI and Sony) at a press conference earlier today. The website, which had been in beta for over a year, can be found here, or you can try the translated version (note that you won’t be able to download or listen to songs outside of the country).
The site offers over a million music tracks thanks to a partnership with Top100.cn (a company co-founded by basketball start Yao Ming which Google has invested in), most of them Chinese but also foreign tunes approved by the government. For example, users can download the latest Metallica album free of charge, of which you can see a screenshot below. Apart from the four labels mentioned above, several major publishers and 140+ indie labels are said to be on board. → Read More
What were the top social media sites of 2008? ComScore came out with its worldwide traffic stats for November a few days ago (so these don’t include December). They are a mix of social networks and blogging platforms. Blogger, the orange line in the chart above, still rules the roost with an estimated 222 million unique worldwide visitors in November (up 44 percent from November, 2007). Facebook, the blue line, is on pace to pass it soon with 200 million unique visitors (up 116 percent). (Note, though, that this is more than the 140 million active users Facebook itself reports—go figure). MySpace is pretty steady at 126 million uniques. Wordpress is a close fourth and gaining with 114 million (up 68 percent). And Windows Live Spaces is down 22 percent to 87 million uniques.
ComScore keeps a list of what it calls “social networking” sites, but these include blogging platforms and other social media sites as well. While the audience for blogs is still showing healthy growth overall, Facebook stands out as the social gorilla taking share from not only other social networks but blogs and other social media as well. Below are the top 20 sites on comScore’s social networking list. → Read More
Google keeps gaining search market share in the U.S., but its global dominance is not as great as previously indicated. Last night, comScore released its search market share and query growth numbers for July and Lehman Brothers reported the numbers in a note this morning. Here are the main search market share percentage numbers in the U.S. from comScore: Company—–July search share—Change from June, 2008 Google: 61.9 +0.4 Yahoo: 20.5 -0.4 AOL: 4.5 +0.2 Microsoft: 8.9 -0.3 Ask: 4.2 +0.1 According to the latest search query and market share numbers from comScore for July, Google’s U.S. market share inched upward to 61.9 percent (from 61.5 percent in June). While Google gained 0.4 percentage points in market share inJuly, yahoo lost the same amount. And its search query volume in the U.S. held steady at a healthy 33.2 percent year-over-year rate (and accelreated slightly to 11.7 percent on a quarter-over-quarter basis). That quarter-over-quarter rate is what caused investor concern earlier this year, when it troughed at -0.3 percent in February. Since then it has re-accelerated every month to 4.4 percent in March, 6.1 percent in April, 9.9 percent in May, 10.0 percent in June, and now 11.7 percent in July. Woldwide, Google’s search share declined from 67.9 percent in June to 64.1 percent in July. This drop was largely due changes in the way comScore measures search and Web traffic in China, Brazil, and Russia. As a result, Baidu’s global search market share went from 7.7 percent in June to 12.9 percent in July (based almost entirely on its strength in China alone). That makes Baidu the third largest search engine the world after Yahoo. What the recalculation highlights is that Google faces more challenges to its dominance abroad than in the U.S. Baidu’s global quarter-over-quarter search query volume grew 98 percent in July, compared to 3.2 percent global growth for Google. Here are the global numbers with Baidu (China) and NHN (South Korea Russia): Company—–July search share—–Change from June, 2008 Google: 64.1 -3.8 Yahoo: 14.6 -1.0 Baidu 12.9 +5.2 Microsoft: 3.6 -0.2 NHN 2.1 -0.2 Ask: 1.6 -0.1 AOL: 1.0 -0.1 → Read More
Chinese search engine Baidu worked an image of presidential candidate Barack Obama into their home page logo today, as well as a tribute page about the candidate. From what we can tell it’s very rare for Baidu to dedicate its home page to an individual, and no other U.S. presidential candidate has been so honored. In short, this is an endorsement of the candidate. Given the tepid relations between the two countries and general U.S. mistrust of China in general, I suspect that the Obama campaign won’t be reaching out to press to let everyone know about the endorsement. CrunchBase Information Baidu Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
The major record labels have gone in for a second round of listing pirated songs is bad legal action against leading Chinese search engine Baidu and smaller player Sohu. Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music and Hong Kong-based Gold Label Entertainment lodged the new suit Monday, asking a Beijing court to order Baidu and Sohu to remove links to thousands of sites that carry pirated music. A previous case against Baidu was unsuccessful, however the record companies believe recent changes to Chinese copyright law gives them a much stronger case this time. Yahoo China has been found guilty of copyright infringement under the new laws. The success of Baidu has been credited to its index of music which is available from its front page, something Google has been unable to compete with until now (Google does not offer music search in China). Word leaked earlier today that Google had entered a joint venture with Top100.cn to offer free and legal music in China (details here) later this month. The NASDAQ listed Baidu remains China’s largest internet company, but the site has been hit harder than many since the sharemarket turned late last year. From a high of $407.70 in November 2007, the stock closed at $230 a share today, down by a whopping 43.6%. Baidu shares fell 2.17% to $225 a share in after market trading. (via WSJ) → Read More
Google is set to challenge China’s largest search provider Baidu by offering free legal music. The success of Baidu has long been credited to the search engine providing music search from its front page, but much to the lack of amusement of record companies, the music found by Baidu is nearly all pirated. Baidu fronted a Chinese Court in December, and won the day with a ruling that Baidu did not infringe copyright by merely linking to infringing music. According to a WSJ.com report, Google’s new free music service in China is in the late planning stages and involves a joint venture with an undisclosed company. The service will offer access to music from three of the four big global music companies, as well as other smaller players, with a launch date possibly later this month. The move into music provision would be a first for Google, and although this deal is directly in response to Baidu, there is always the possibility that with one territory in place, complete with joint venture partner and music deals, that Google could roll this out into other countries in the future. Yahoo was rumored to be considering a similar service in January, although has since closed its music service in favor of RealNetwork’s Rhapsody service. There are also a number of small players offering ad supported music as well. Either way, it’s yet another vertical where the smaller players/ startups will sleep less well at the thought that Google may enter their space in the future. Update: Google JV partner is believed to be Top100.cn. → Read More
While Google dominates the top slot in search both in the U.S. and worldwide, with a global search market share of 62 percent, there is still a lot of elbowing going on below, especially when you look beyond the U.S. In a comScore ranking of the top-10 global search engines as measured by number of searches during the month of December, 2007, Yahoo comes in at a distant No. 2 with only 13 percent of global share. (Although, in the U.S., Yahoo actually gained a half-point of share in December, whereas Google dipped 0.2 percent). The big surprise, though, is the strength of local search engines in countries that don’t use the Roman alphabet. No. 3 on the list is not Microsoft, but Chinese search engine Baidu (with 5 percent share, versus Microsoft’s 3 percent). No. 5 is Korea’s NHN Corporation, which operates the Naver portal and search engine. Creeping up on Ask’s No. 8 spot, is Russian search engine Yandex. And Alibaba (which may include Yahoo China) brings up the rear at No. 10. Shouldn’t the best search technology win no matter what the language? These market share figures suggest that culture and marketing play a big role as well—unless, of course, you are Google. → Read More
Chinese search giant Baidu has lost its CFO under mysterious circumstances, but has won a major piracy case. In a statement, Baidu said that CFO Shawn Wang had died in “an accident” whilst on holidays in China. No further details on the death were provided. Baidu shares dropped $9.07 following the news. On a more positive note a Beijing appeals court ruled that Baidu was not guilty of copyright infringement for posting links to websites that offer illegal music downloads. Baidu offers music search on its front page and the service is often cited as being one of the core reasons behind its success in China over Google, who does not offer a similar music search facility. Yahoo China lost a similar case December 21. (via AFP/ NY Times) → Read More
Google is being investigated for tax evasion by the Chinese Inland Revenue Department following a tip off from an “informant” alleging wrong doing. According to local reports, the investigation into Google includes evasion of business and personal tax, and tax on employee options. At least some of the investigation relates to how Google has previously treated transactions from Chinese customers to its US head office. Between 2000 and 2003 Google offered Adwords services to Chinese citizens that did no go via the local subsidiary, resulting in no local records from which authorities can check for tax avoidance. A further allegation suggests that domestic customers until 2007 could use agents to place Adwords ads, avoiding a formal invoice and auditable paper trail, possibly in breach of Chinese tax law. Sina.com (in Chinese) received some sort of confirmation from the Chinese tax authorities that the investigation was underway, and went on to say that the investigation could widen to include other online companies operating in China, including Taobao, Baidu and Yahoo. Thanks to Billsdue for the tip → Read More
Google is testing a new home page for Google.cn that completely abandons Google’s clean uncluttered look for something that looks more like Yahoo. Google Blogscoped notes that this may just be a test and might not become the main Google portal in the worlds second largest internet market, but even as a test it’s a big change. Google has struggled to gain marketshare in China against the homegrown but NASDAQ listed Baidu. If you’re wondering what all the content in the shot above means, a translated version can be found here. → Read More
The IPO of Alibaba.com hit the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Tuesday (local time) with a big increase over its initial offering price. Alibaba.com is a spinoff from the Alibaba Group, the company that owns Alipay, Taobao.com and Yahoo China and is 40% owned by Yahoo. Applications for shares in the IPO were 256x the amount of stock available, 858.9 million shares or 17% of the company. The IPO price was HK$13.50 ($1.74) per share. As of 12:30pm local time (+8 GMT) Alibaba.com shares were trading at HK$35.75 ($4.60), an increase of 164% on the list price. Yahoo is a big winner from the IPO, having obtained a 8.2% stake pre-IPO that went from a paper value of $720.89 million to $1.9 billion based on the 12:30pm price. Alibaba now has a market cap of a rather staggering $23.24 billion, significantly more than the market cap of China’s biggest search engine, the NASDAQ listed Baidu on $14.05 billion. See our previous coverage here and here. Update: Alibaba.com stock is now trading at HK$39.60 as at 3:40pm local time (2:40am EST). We’ll update again once the days trading closes in Hong Kong Update 2: at the close of trade Alibaba.com stock was HK$39.50 ($5.09). Market cap is now $25.17 billion. CrunchBase Information Alibaba Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
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