Baidu Recreates American Software Successes in China
Baidu Recreates American Software Successes in China
The Chinese internet search giant has closely recreated Silicon Valley successes in China for decades. With a timely focus on artificial intelligence, it is poised to recreate any new leaps too.
Baidu is a publicly-traded Chinese technology conglomerate built around internet search. It is by far the most popular search engine in China, with 76% of the market, or about 677 million monthly active users as of June 2023.1 Baidu reported $17.9 billion in revenue in 2022, of which about 60% came from search.2 Baidu also offers a myriad of software products aimed at individual consumers and businesses, such as online maps, an internet browser, and cloud storage. It runs Baidu Baike, the world’s largest user-edited Chinese-language encyclopedia and iQIYI, a paid video streaming service which reported $4.2 billion in revenue in 2022.3 For comparison, Netflix reported $31.6 billion in revenue that year.4 Alongside Alibaba and Tencent, Baidu is one of the three titans of the Chinese software industry.