Chinese search giant Baidu builds allies in India

Teams up with Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra to deliver O2O services

Baidu, China’s largest internet search and maps provider with revenues of $7.9 billion in 2014, is betting big on India by building partnerships and platforms to deliver O2O (Online-to-Offline) services.

In a recent interaction with Deccan Herald, Baidu’s two top level executives who were on a business trip to India revealed that they have already started monetising in the country. They, however, refused to reveal financial details.

A Baidu International Business Development Manager said the company is still at an early stage in India. “Our main focus right now is to build a foundation of strong, local partnerships. Through those partnerships, we can grow our user base and create a platform with services that will resonate with people and improve their lives, as well as bolster the local internet ecosystem,” he said.

He said the company has already tied up with local partners like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra, and NewsHunt. “We are involved in a traffic-sharing model that helps all of us extend our reach and increase our number of users,” he said.

He said the company is looking at delivering O2O services to India based on its successful experiences in China.

O2O commerce is the principle of connecting the online digital world to the offline world through the integration of internet-connected devices.

Here, Customers are either driven offline based on online information like eCoupons, or store locators; or they are propelled online through call for actions in the offline world like QR codes and mobile payment systems.

Eyeing ‘hot opportunities’
When asked about the verticals which Baidu focuses in India, he said the company is not looking at specific verticals. “The question is more on establishing a platform that people enjoy using and will keep going back to for fun and useful services. The landscape is changing very quickly in this industry,” he said.

Last year, Baidu launched a food delivery service called ‘Baidu Waimai’ in China. “It had a meteoric rise. It  already has the majority market share in 20 cities! So, we want to keep our minds (and eyes) open for hot opportunities like that in India, as well as in other emerging markets,” he said.

Commenting on its meteoric rise in Brazil, he said the Nasdaq-listed company acquired Brazil’s biggest homegrown group-buying platform, Peixe Urbano, and thus monthly sales increased by over 90 per cent.
 
Baidu founder a search legend
Baidu is the largest website in China and the fifth largest in the world. According to its 2014, 20-F filing to SEC, Baidu has claimed a search market share of 71 per cent in China. Western commentators would like to give the impression that this is entirely due to government support. But the fact remains that company founder and CEO Yanhong (Robin) Li — who incidentally was China’s second-richest billionaire last year according to Forbes with a net worth of $14.7 billion — is regarded as a pioneer in search engine technology. Just like Larry Page of Google, he was one of a handful of search experts who arrived at the conclusion that inbound search links were a key indicator of a website’s popularity.

And what’s more, he patented his RankDex system, two years before Stanford filed for Larry’s PageRank algorithm in 1998.