Baidu Inc. Overview
Company Headquarters: China
Founded: 2000
Workforce: ~37,779
Company Working: Baidu, Inc. is a leader in web search in China. In addition to web search, the company provides several popular community-based products, including Baidu Post Bar, the world’s first and the largest Chinese-language query-based, searchable online community platform, Baidu Knows, the world’s largest Chinese-language interactive knowledge-sharing platform, and Baidu Encyclopedia, the world’s largest user-generated Chinese-language encyclopedia. Beyond these, the company offers its services in navigation, image search, and video search, among many more. It offers a media platform for online marketers through its website partner, Baidu Union. Baidu Union directs traffic to the marketers by integrating the company’s search box into their websites and/or by displaying relevant contextual promotional links for customers. Most of the total revenue is derived from performance-based online marketing services, whereby the company’s customers pay on a cost-per-click basis by clicking on the paid link. Beyond China, Baidu, Inc. has its presence in other markets such as Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, and Thailand.
Strategy
Baidu, as a part of its growth strategy, enters new businesses from time to time by taking advantage of its large internet user base and advanced technology to generate additional revenue for the company. The company offers products and services that enable users to find relevant information easily and quickly. Moreover, the company intends to provide customers with cost-effective and targeted marketing solutions. The company also makes strategic investments in new business lines by acquisitions of other businesses that complement its current business, which results in the overall development of the company. Baidu follows a two-fold strategy—strengthening its mobile foundation and use of artificial intelligence. The company also collaborates with various companies to develop its products and solutions. For instance, in 2018, to develop Apollo, an autonomous driving platform, Baidu collaborated with Berkeley DeepDrive Industry Consortium, which is a research alliance, which works in the field of computer vision and machine learning for automotive application.
