Baidu `Increasingly Keen' on Purchases to Add to Search Service, Li Says
Baidu’s Li Says Company ‘Increasingly Keen’ on Acquisitions
Nelson Ching/Bloomberg
Robin Li, chief executive officer of Baidu Inc., prepares for a remote opening of the Nasdaq at the headquarters of Baidu Inc. in Beijing on Aug. 5.
Robin Li, chief executive officer of Baidu Inc., prepares for a remote opening of the Nasdaq at the headquarters of Baidu Inc. in Beijing on Aug. 5. Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg
Baidu Inc., operator of China’s most- popular website, is seeking acquisitions that would strengthen its search service or add to it, Chief Executive Officer Robin Li said.
“In the past few years, Baidu has made very few acquisitions because our core business has been growing very rapidly,” Li said at a press conference at the company’s headquarters in Beijing late yesterday. “Going forward, we are increasingly keen on making this kind of strategic move.”
Baidu is the dominant search engine in the world’s largest Internet market, receiving more than 75 percent of the nation’s search queries. As the company grows, it aims to add “meaningful revenue” outside China in the next five to 15 years, Li said, without providing a target for international sales.
The press event was held to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Baidu’s listing on the Nasdaq Stock Market in August 2005. Li didn’t indicate how much the company would invest in acquisitions, or provide a timeframe for making any purchases.
Google Inc., owner of the world’s most-popular search engine outside China, said in January it would no longer comply with Chinese regulations to self-censor content after receiving cyber attacks from inside the country. In March, Google began redirecting users of its China-based Google.cn service to its Hong Kong site.
Google’s Advantage
Baidu’s cost of continuing to comply with domestic self- censorship laws is giving Google a competitive advantage in the market, Baidu’s Li said in an interview in Beijing earlier yesterday.
“We have to spend a lot of resources to make sure our content and services abide by Chinese law, and they don’t,” Li said in the Bloomberg Television interview. “Even if they decide not to block certain types of content, they’re still very accessible.”
Baidu fell 1.2 percent to close at $85.57 in Nasdaq stock market trading yesterday. The shares have more than doubled this year.
--Edmond Lococo. Editors: Young-Sam Cho, Jonathan Annells
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Edmond Lococo in Beijing at +86-10-6649-7507 or elococo@bloomberg.net
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