When a company’s service becomes kinda of monopoly, the magic could happen. After Google’s quit (although it says they never really quit China), Baidu has been playing its role in Chinese search market in a much more aggressive way. Disregarding the increasing complaints on Baidu’s monopoly, 2010 turns out a happy year for Baidu.
In the latest financial report, we see Baidu almost doubled its revenue and had 171% increase in its net earning in the Q4 of 2010. The company says that its revenue in the three months to December 31, 2010 was Rmb2.451billions (US$371m), up 94.4 per cent compared to a year earlier, and net income jumped to Rmb1.161billions. And the revenue mainly came from the online advertisement.
Also early today, Robin Li, CEO of Baidu said its Qiyi, online video service has reached 100million monthly users. Qiyi was launched only 9 months ago (launched at 22nd April), but since CEO of Qiyi used to say that 30%-50% Traffic To Existing Chinese Video Sites Is From Baidu, we should not be surprised. So what’s the future plan for Qiyi, Robin said he wanted it to go for IPO.
In 2011, if Baidu keeps growing like this, happiness for Baidu, but would not be a good sign for China web.