Monday, 10 December 2012

Top 10 tech trends to watch in 2013

December 10, 2012 



Dec. 10, 2012, 6:01 a.m. EST

Recent stumbles aside, 2 tech stocks to buy

Commentary: These giants look good in the long term.

By Jeff Reeves
Rockville, MD (MarketWatch) — Tech stocks are on a tear lately, with big names like Cisco, Dell and even Facebook all tallying gains of more than 10% in the past month alone.
But looking forward, you have to wonder how long some of these rallies will last. Big-time tech trends include a secular decline in PC sales, cost-per-click troubles in Internet advertising and a general softness in corporate IT spending. And some big launches — BlackBerry 10 from Research in Motion and the Surface/Windows 8 line from Microsoft are the biggies — are really make-it-or-break-it products.
So is there still time to ride the tech rally? Sure, but you need to pick the right stocks, with the right time horizon. And right now I’m more interested in some of the big, stable names that have fallen out of favor rather than these high-fliers who have recently become popular on Wall Street.
Two stocks I am closely watching are chipmaker Intel INTC -0.52%  and Internet behemoth Google GOOG +0.22% . I have a personal stake in INTC, initiated in November, and I am currently watching Google very closely for an entry back in the $650 range we saw in mid-November.
The Case for Intel
Investors should know the obvious risks to Intel amid the decline of PC sales and an 18% decline in INTC stock so far in 2012. But for many reasons, I think this is a great long-term value buy right now.
Scale : Intel is the largest semiconductor manufacturer on the planet, with 15.9% market share in 2011 — bigger than numbers two and three combined. While the mobile business might eat into some of that market share over time, that is not the case right now. In fact, Intel’s 2011 market share surged to a 10-year high, according to industry publication iSuppli.
Dividend : The yield of this tech giant is an impressive 4.6% right now. That in itself is attractive, but the increase in distributions is also a plus for me. In late 2007, Intel paid 11 cents a quarter. Now it’s 22 cents. A 100% increase in dividends over the past five years — a period when some payers cut or eliminated dividends because of the financial crisis — is no mean feat. Furthermore, that 22 cents a quarter is a roughly 40% payout ratio as a portion of total earnings. So it’s not just sustainable, but also set up for incremental increases in the next few years.
Valuation : Intel’s forward guidance has been disappointing, but at current estimates, the FY2013 earnings forecast is $2.03 a share. Divide that EPS by the current pricing of around $20, and you get a forward P/E ratio of less than 10. Furthermore, Intel stock has a five-year price-to-earnings-to-growth ratio of 0.8 and a one-year PEG of less than 1.1 — implying that INTC has become pretty fairly valued after the recent declines.
Apple hopes : This isn’t an investment thesis alone, but it’s a nice sweetener: There are rumors that Intel is negotiating with Apple to supply it with iPad processors. Intel is trying to make a big push into mobile, and this could be a game-changer for the company.
As I said, I personally have a long position in Intel with a cost basis of $21.50. I think any purchase under this level is a decent long-term investment so long as you’re willing to buy-and-hold for at least 12 months.
The case for Google
Another tech giant that has stumbled lately is Google. The stock has underperformed year-to-date after spring’s big run evaporated and poor Google earnings recently that resulted in an intraday decline of as much as 10%. There’s also the threat of an antitrust lawsuit from the European Commission or U.S. regulators based on its search dominance, among other things.
But long term, you’d be hard-pressed to find a company that is more plugged in to the future of mobile and the way the world uses the Internet. Here’s why I think Google has staying power in the short term — and big potential in the next year or two:
Long-term fundamentals : Earnings have grown rapidly in the past five years, from $13.31 per share in 2008 to projections of $32.25 in fiscal 2012 according to Standard & Poor’s. Revenue has grown impressively, too, from $21.8 billion in fiscal 2008 to a projected $41.5 billion this year. That’s almost triple the profits and double the sales! And though earnings missed expectations last quarter, revenue surged from $9.7 billion to $14.1 billion. Considering the top-line trouble at many corporations, I’m willing to cut Google a little slack on its recent miss. Oh yeah, and it’s projecting a 27% jump in profits in fiscal 2013 from fiscal 2012. Some of the tech blue-chips rallying right now are lucky if they’re expecting to simply tread water next year on the EPS front.
Smartphone dominance : Considering the massive 75% market share that Android commands on all mobile devices, it’s hard to find a better way to play the death of the PC than with Google. And the company’s ambitious line of Nexus devices — a four-inch smartphone, a seven-inch mini tablet and a 10-inch premium tablet — hint of the possibilities in the hardware arena in addition to just providing software and content. This is all just a hunch, of course, since hardware is certainly not a cash cow currently for Google, and the Android OS remains open-source. But it’s hard to ignore the potential, especially if efforts like the new Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 fall flat and GOOG tightens its grip even more on the market.
Innovation : Google has a long history of innovation, interesting buyouts and creative ways of rethinking the tech landscape. After all, Android was acquired in 2005, and it was years before the viability of the software was proven out. Will its next big hit be travel bookings or reviews thanks to the purchase of Frommer’s travel guides and Zagat restaurant ratings? Will it be Google Offers, a daily deals service in the vein of Groupon? Will it be a resurgent Google Analytics platform that takes on industry standard Omniture from Adobe? You can accuse Google of a lot of things, but you can’t accuse it of sitting still.
Admittedly, both of these plays are long-term investments — and because I have a personal stake in Intel, I could be letting my own interests skew my perceptions.
What do you think of these picks? And what’s your favorite long-term tech buy? Let me know in the comments section below.
Jeff Reeves is the editor of InvestorPlace.com and the author of “ The Frugal Investor’s Guide to Finding Great Stocks .” Write him at editor@investorplace.com or follow him on Twitter via @JeffReevesIP . As of this writing, he held a long position in Intel but no other stocks named here.

 

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Saturday, 8 December 2012

Three trends for your retirement portfolio

How to invest for the emerging global middle class

 
 Dec. 7, 2012, 7:01 a.m. EST 
 
 
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/three-trends-for-your-retirement-portfolio-2012-12-07?pagenumber=2
 
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By Robert Powell, MarketWatch
Building a portfolio for retirement requires a radar system that reveals not just the blips on the screen that are nearby, but those that might be off the screen.
Or at least so says intelligence analyst and former journalist Herb Meyer, who is all about radar systems that allow you to see as far into the future as possible. And today, Meyer’s radar system is suggesting that there’s a world of investment opportunity out there given three very big demographic, macroeconomic, societal changes taking place.
Now in the interest of full and fair disclosure, Meyer is not your typical investment analyst. Instead, Meyer’s claim to fame is that he’s ex-CIA from the Reagan Administration and now author of several books including “Real-Word Intelligence.”

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And what he likes to do these days is do what he used to do for President Reagan: Paint a picture of the world that’s out there in front of us. “Not what you can see outside your windshield,” Meyer said in a speech in Boston (many weeks prior to the current conflict in Israel and Gaza). “But what you can see if you look down at your radar screen, the one further ahead.”

The Arab Spring

The first thing that Meyer sees on his radar screen today is the violent conflicts and political transformations in the Middle East. “The Mideast is on fire,” Meyer said at the time. “And we need to see where this is going.”
And the best way to see where you are going, he said, is to know where you are and how you got there. To Meyer, that means going back in time to the end of the 17th Century in when “life was terrible.” Life spans were short, hunger and starvation was widespread, people were illiterate and uneducated. Nothing changed back then. “Tomorrow was the same as yesterday,” he said.
The modern world, by contrast, is very different. Life spans are longer, people are educated, travel is common, change is constant, and even though income varies widely, few are starving. “Do you realize what a human achievement that is?,” Meyer said. “It’s so extraordinary that today we are told that the greatest health problem faced by poor people is obesity.”
Western Civilization’s transition to the modern world wasn’t smooth, and we should expect the same as countries in the Middle East transition to the modern world as well. “When you look at the Islamic world today you are looking at a 1.5 billion people beginning to make the journey we began more than 300 years ago,” said Meyer. “And what we keep saying to them is ‘Can’t you guys do this by next Thursday?’”
Obviously, changes can’t be made that quickly, the social and political struggles will continue. When you look at many countries in the Middle East today, you are watching people beginning to write the code for a new world order. “It’s one of the most extraordinary events in world history,” said Meyer. “And you are watching it happen. And it only just started.”

Emergence of global middle class

The second big blip on Meyer’s radar screen is this: “The world is emerging from poverty, fast,” said Meyer. By 1990, two billion human beings had crossed the line out of poverty. Since then another 500 million have crossed. And, right now, somewhere between 50 million to 100 million cross the line out of poverty each year, Meyer said.
“And if we can sustain this trend,” he said, “it means that within your lifetime, certainly within your children’s lifetimes, the world will cross a line that’s never been crossed before. We’ll be out of poverty. An overwhelming majority of human beings will no longer be poor. And that will be the greatest moment in human history and you will live to see it.”
Why is it happening? “All over the world, governments are now putting in place the free-market mechanisms to pull their populations out of poverty,” he said. And the result is the most stunning development of our lifetime—the emergence of a global middle class. This is biggest underreported news story in the world.”
This is good for several reasons, one of which is this: “People like us don’t go to war with people like us,” he said.
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We’ve stopped breeding

The third blip on his radar screen is this: If you want to sustain a country’s population, the birthrate has to be 2.1 per woman. But today, in Western Europe, the birthrate 1.5, 30% below the sustainable rate, he said. “That means, in 30 years from now, there will be between 70 million to 80 million fewer Europeans alive than there are today,” Meyer said.
Why has this happened? Fewer married couples want children. Fewer people are getting married. And, fewer adults want to work. “What you are looking at in Europe is a demographic death spiral,” said Meyer, who also noted that the same thing is happening in Japan where the birthrate is 1.3.
As in Western Europe, there won't be enough young people to replace the older generation in Japan. “Japan is aging so fast, by 2020, one out of every five Japanese citizens will be over the age of 70 and no one can figure out how to run modern society with one out five people over the age of 70,” Meyer said. “Japan is committing national suicide.”
As for the U.S., two years ago, the birthrate was 2.1. Today, the birthrate is slightly below 2.1 according to Meyer. (The CIA’s estimate for the U.S. for 2012 is 2.06.)
The country with the highest birthrate in the Western world is Israel, which the CIA puts at 2.7, which means that 30 years from now there will be more young people than older people.
In the Muslim world, the birthrate is above 2.1, but the numbers are starting to decline, especially in Turkey (2.1) and Iran (1.9), he said. “For all practical purposes, Iran doesn’t have another generation,” he said.
In general, Meyer said, “We are getting old. It’s happening at different rates in different places. Here in the U.S., the elderly-dependency ratio—the percentage of the population that is old—will double, from 19% to 39%, over the next 20 years.”
And by 2045, for the first time in history, the number of humans living over the age of 55 will be larger than the number of humans under the age of 15, he said. “And that’s a done deal. Nothing can be done to stop that from happening,” Meyer said. “You are living in a world where there will be more older people than younger people.”
So why does this matter? “Because older people don’t spend money the way young people do,” he said, noting that it’s one major reason why the economic recovery in the U.S. has been so tepid.

How to invest for the emerging global middle class

So what might you invest in given the blips on Meyer’s radar screen?
Well, anything that takes advantage of the emerging global middle class. Their demand for our goods and services is rising. And that bodes well for the U.S. economy. Each year the total customer base for every product and service we can provide is growing at rate of 50 million to 100 million new customers per year. “We want to help world to emerge from poverty not just for their sake, but for our own,” he said. The emerging global middle class “will create jobs, help us pay off the deficit, and pay down our debt.”
Given that, Meyer said the growth sectors of the 21st century include: energy (“The amount of fuel we are going to need to bring the world out of poverty is staggering,” he said. “This changes the entire energy conversation.”); food (In the past eight years, for instance, China has increased its consumption of meat has more than doubled.); infrastructure; health care; and education.
Now if his radar is accurate, you should be able to steer your portfolio away from danger into a world of opportunity.
Robert Powell is editor of Retirement Weekly, published by MarketWatch. Learn more about Retirement Weekly here . Follow his tweets here .
Robert Powell is a MarketWatch Retirement columnist. He has been a journalist covering personal finance issues for more than 20 years. Follow him on Twitter @RJPIII.
 
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Ford’s fine C-Max falls way short on mileage

By Dan Neil

Dan Neil/The Wall Street Journal
Ford claims 47 mpg for its C-Max hyb
As much as I hate to be topical, I have driven, in just the last few days, a fresh-from-the-factory Ford C-Max Hybrid SEL. Last month, Green Car Reports—that Bolshevik rag—reported that the C-Max Hybrid and the Fusion Hybrid it tested (they share hybrid architecture) didn’t come close to delivering their Environmental Protection Agency mileage ratings of 47/47/47 miles per gallon, city/highway/combined. This supports similarly scandalous findings this month in Consumer Reports.
I read that and thought, Yup.
Hyundai, Honda and now Ford F +2.14%  have been accused of cooking the mileage books, and in the first blush of evidence—I just ran a tank of gas through the C-Max and got 33.9 average mpg—I also judge the C-Max’s rating to be grossly inflated.
Click to Play

C-Max falls way short on mileage

Dan Neil explains why he found the Ford C-Max Hybrid SEL's mileage rating to be grossly inflated.
But a couple of notes: I drive hard, especially when I’m alone. And…wait, can I just take you somewhere on the driving-hard thing? I’d like to introduce the Neil Scale of Necessary Cruelty. Driving a high-performance street car—let’s say, the all-wheel drive, 545-horsepower Nissan GT-R—on public roads is frustrating to the point of being sexual. That car is so toweringly capable, so effortlessly violent, you cannot get anywhere near its limits on the street. You spend most of your time throttling back your own testosterone.
However, a little commuter gelding such as the Ford C-Max Hybrid, that you can thrash. It’s actually fun, and informative, to cane a family car: tires squeal, wheels come off the ground. It’s a hoot. Around town, the C-Max has loads of hybrid-system torque, blasting off quietly from stoplights, a bookworm hooligan. Give that a 5 on the Neil Scale.
The point is, I drove the C-Max Hybrid pretty hard and that lowered my mileage. Still, with the cruise control set on 76 mph on a dead-flat four-lane highway in mild conditions, the C-Max’s instantaneous mileage readout was fixed at 35.8 mpg, well short of nominal.

A patently suspicious number

It must be noted: The C-Max’s across-the-board 47 mpg is a monster number, almost patently suspicious. We are looking at a 3,607-pound vehicle with 188 hybrid horsepower (2.0-liter, 141-hp Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder; continuously variable transmission; AC synchronous electric motor; 1.4 kWh lithium-ion battery pack with 35 kW max output). This is a five-seat, five-door hatch boasting zero-to-60 mph acceleration of around 8.2 seconds, considerably quicker than the rival Toyota Prius V, which is rated at only 44/40 mpg. The C-Max outweighs the Honda CR-Z hybrid sport coupe by a half-ton and yet, by EPA estimates, gets more than 25% better fuel economy.
And while the C-Max is aero-sleek to the eye, it actually puts a significant dent in the air (63.9 inches high and 82 inches wide at the side mirrors). Frankly, I’m impressed I got 33.9 mpg.
But merely awesome fuel economy is almost beside the point now, in light of these unfulfilled expectations. The point now is to hiss and boo Ford, which is so obviously trying to defraud the buying public. And let’s not forget to blame the government. Everyone knows Corporate Average Fuel Economy = Communism.
I mildly propose a third reading: It’s a testing effect.
First off, the EPA’s mileage numbers are comparative, not representative.

Where those mileage numbers come from

It cannot be otherwise, for if you demand that these numbers represent a vehicle’s real-world fuel efficiency, you have to specify: Whose real world? Me and mine, with my 40-pound right foot? Is this real world in North Dakota, Florida or Colorado?
The feds’ five-cycle, 43.9-mile testing methodology is arcane—almost 200 pages in the Federal Register, including the CAFE calculations—but that shouldn’t surprise anyone, since the process attempts to capture a complex phenomenon, a vehicle’s fuel economy, in just two numbers printed on new cars’ so-called Monroney label. Even the EPA’s “average” mpg number is weighted in a way not beyond dispute.
It would be hard to overstate the consequence of these numbers. The numbers determine which vehicle can claim best-in-class mileage, who has to pay a gas-guzzler tax, and which technologies merit their relative cost in fuel savings. CAFE was designed to inflect a manufacturer’s entire portfolio, to bend it toward higher fuel efficiency, and it does just that.
To complicate matters, the mileage of most vehicles is self-certified by the manufacturers. The EPA does not, and cannot, verify mileage numbers for the majority of light-duty vehicles (though I imagine there’s a Ford C-Max Hybrid on the dynamometers in Michigan right now). Meanwhile, the feds’ fuel-economy administrators are currently operating at a dead run trying to keep up with a host of new, highly digitized fuel-saving technologies, such as “Eco” throttle mapping and stop-start (the engine cuts out as the vehicle coasts or stops), which were practically invented to hack the EPA testing cycle.
So we have a very complex, specialized, high-stakes test, often self-administered, being laid siege to by auto makers’ legion of code writers, even as the standards themselves are soaring. In August, the Obama administration completed rules setting national fuel economy standards at 54.5 mpg for cars and light-duty trucks by 2025. Let’s not even talk about California or the EU.
Where does all this leave the C-Max? I think it’s likely that Ford’s hybrid powertrain programming is, let’s say, overly familiar with the EPA’s testing regime. For example: Key to the Ford hybrid’s system big numbers is its all-electric speed range of up to 62 mph. If you are really gentle with the accelerator, you can reach highway speeds without ever switching on the gas engine. That’s a huge win during the testing cycle, though hard to replicate in the real world. I wouldn’t even call it an attempt to game the system. It’s the result of human nature, to the extent that automotive engineers are human.

Bouquets of kudzu notwithstanding ...

The C-Max’s mileage issue is the sort of thing that makes PR people throw themselves off bridges. This is otherwise a hugely winning vehicle, with a lot of smart cabin details and premium materials all wrought in Ford’s current design vocabulary, a sort of low-key, friendly futurism. The C-Max’s fold-flat rear-seat system is brilliant, and rear cabin access is about as good as anything on the market. You can actually get children’s car seats in and out of the door openings with no problem. (Ford decided not to import what it calls in Europe the Grand C-Max, an MPV version of the global C platform with minivan-like sliding doors.)
Shoppers looking to bracket the C-Max will want to look at the Kia Sportage, which has front-hinged doors, and the Mazda5, which has the sliding doors.
But no matter how good it is otherwise, the C-Max keeps bringing the conversation back to fuel efficiency. Among the many mileage-monitoring displays and tutorials available in the LCD instrument panel is a driving-efficiency “coach,” which gently nags you about your braking and acceleration behavior. There’s a screen called Empower, another called Engage. All are devoted to illustrating the thermodynamic flux in the hybrid system, wavering like a candle in the wind. As you drive, the right side of the instrument panel display fills up with encouraging green leaves, like efficiency kudzu.
Well, I had whole bouquets of kudzu and I never saw anything close to 47 mpg. With respect, Ford, someone needs to recalibrate, and it isn’t me.
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Thursday, 6 December 2012

Apple shares gain back some buzz

Stock bounces back from three-day drop; T-Mobile deal announced

By Dan Gallagher, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Apple Inc. saw its shares gain back some lost ground Thursday following a harsh sell-off for the first half of the week — though the shares remain near their cheapest valuation level in the last decade.

Reuters
Apple CEO Tim Cook, shown here at the D10 Conference on May 29, says the company is planning to build some of its Mac computers in the U.S. next year.
By the afternoon, Apple AAPL +1.30%  picked up about 2% to trade at $549.57. The stock has been under two days of intense selling pressure and remains about 8% below its level at the start of the week.
The sell-off was not driven by any apparent news, though a variety of factors appeared to factor in, including technical drivers, concern over the health of the consumer technology market and growing competition in the tablet market. Read: Five downside catalysts for Apple.
Thursday’s bounce-back came after the parent company of T-Mobile USA — the only major U.S. carrier not selling the iPhone — said it struck a deal to begin selling Apple products next year.
“We have now added the final piece to the jigsaw to boost the competitiveness of T-Mobile USA sustainably,” Deustche Telekom Chairman Rene Obermann said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Read WSJ: T-Mobile USA to carry iPhone 


Also, Apple CEO Tim Cook granted a rare round of interviews with Bloomberg Businessweek and CNBC. Many of the things said in those interviews were similar to past statements made by the CEO, though he conceded to Businessweek that the company “screwed up” with the launch of its mapping application on the iPhone 5. Read: Apple CEO says 'we screwed up' on maps
He also said Apple is planning to build some of its Mac computers in the U.S. Most of Apple’s products are produced in China.
“We’ve been working on this for a long time, and we were getting closer to it,” Cook told Businessweek, adding that the company is investing over $100 million in the effort, but gave no details about where. “It will happen in 2013.”
Still, Apple’s shares have taken a heavy pounding in recent weeks, down nearly 22% from their peak above the $700 mark on the day the iPhone 5 launched on Sept. 21. The stock is down nearly 14% since the company unveiled its latest round of product refreshments on Oct. 23 that included the iPad mini and a re-designed iMac.
The sell-off has put the stock to about 11 times estimated earnings for the next four quarters — more than 60% the stock’s average multiple over the last 10 years, according to FactSet.
Click to Play

Mac production coming to U.S.

Apple CEO Time Cook said the company will produce one of its existing lines of Mac computers in the U.S. next year. George Stahl has details on Markets Hub. Photo: AP.
Brian Marshall of ISI Research told clients in a note late Wednesday that they should “stay the course on Apple,” which he rates as a buy, though he also added the famous Mike Tyson quote that “Everyone has a plan, ‘till they get punched in the mouth.”
Marshall recommends that investors look “holistically” at the company, saying that “1) availability [of products] is improving, and 2) Apple products remain the “gift of choice” this holiday season.” He has a $710 price target on the shares.
In a note Thursday morning, Brian White of Topeka Capital noted that Apple’s shares have undergone four sell-offs of 15% or more over the past 13 months.
“Given our view that the fundamental story around Apple remains strongly intact, we believe this latest decline is setting up another attractive buying opportunity and once the tax-related selling abates, the stock will move sharply higher,” White wrote, maintaining a Street-high $1,100 price target on the shares.
Dan Gallagher is MarketWatch's technology editor, based in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @MWDanGallagher.
 
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‘Window dressing’ a hint of bigger problem

Commentary: Fund managers mask performance for a reason

By MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — “Window dressing,” the practice of bidding up stocks at the end of the month when performance numbers are tabulated, obviously is a problem for investors who depend on results to make informed decisions.
But the deeper problem is what those managers are trying to hide: lackluster results.
Click to Play

Fund managers lift results with ‘window dressing’

A WSJ analysis found unusual numbers of stocks beating the market on the last day of most quarters, suggesting deliberate efforts to temporarily drive up their value. Jason Zweig reports on Markets Hub. Photo: AP.
A sweeping investigation by The Wall Street Journal found that fund managers regularly bid up stocks they held in the last trading day before the end of the month. It’s disturbing for those who trust that the U.S. equities markets are the most fair and transparent in the world, but as the story notes, many of these moves are perfectly legal. See full story on end-of-the-quarter stock manipulation .
Moreover, while the eye is drawn to the popping prices on stocks during the last day of the quarter, it’s the intervening days that are most troubling.
Those mutual funds charging you front-end, back-end, 12b-1 and other fees? They can’t even beat the market.
In most studies, fewer than 20% of funds beat the indexes they aim to. In 2011, just 16% of stock funds met or exceeded the returns of the indexes they tracked, according to S&P Indices.

Reuters
Trading at the NYSE
Morningstar, which is supported by the industry, puts the percentage of successful U.S. equity funds higher, 55%. That’s defined as a fund that matches, or outperforms the relative index.
Even if you accept Morningstar’s success rate, consider that the performance numbers are skewed by window dressing. In other words, many of those funds may actually be lagging their indexes on all but on last trading day of the month.
As bad as window dressing may be, the real eyesore is the idea that managed portfolios can claim to beat the market.
— David Weidner
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Baidu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu
For the Ilkhanate ruler, see Baydu.
Baidu, Inc.
Type Public
Traded as NASDAQ: BIDU
NASDAQ-100 Component
Founded 1987
Headquarters Beijing, China
Area served China, Japan, Thailand, Egypt, India
Founder(s) Robin Li, Eric Xu
Key people Robin Li (Chairman and CEO)
Industry Internet
Services Internet search services
Revenue Increase CN¥ 14.500 billion (2011)[1]
Operating income Increase CN¥ 7.576 billion (2011)[1]
Profit Increase CN¥ 6.638 billion (2011)[1]
Total assets Increase CN¥ 23.340 billion (2011)[1]
Total equity Increase CN¥ 15.291 billion (2011)[1]
Employees 16,082 (2011)[1]
Subsidiaries Baidu, Inc. (Japan)
Website www.baidu.com
Alexa rank Steady 5 (August 2012)[2]
Type of site Web search engine
Advertising Pay per click
Registration Optional
Available in Chinese
Japanese
Launched October 11, 1999
Current status Active
Baidu
Baidu Campus.jpg
Baidu headquarters, Haidian District, Beijing
Chinese 百度
Baidu, Inc. (Chinese: 百度; pinyin: Bǎidù, pronounced BY-doo in English), incorporated on January 18, 2000, is a Chinese web services company headquartered in the Baidu Campus in Haidian District, Beijing, People's Republic of China.[3]
Baidu offers many services, including a Chinese language search engine for websites, audio files, and images. Baidu offers 57 search and community services including Baidu Baike, an online collaboratively built encyclopedia, and a searchable keyword-based discussion forum.[4] Baidu was established in 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu. Both of the co-founders are Chinese nationals who studied and worked overseas before returning to China. In October 2012, Baidu ranked 5th overall in the Alexa Internet rankings.[5] During Q4 of 2010, it is estimated that there were 4.02 billion search queries in China of which Baidu had a market share of 56.6%. China's internet-search revenue share in second quarter 2011 by Baidu is 76%[6] In December 2007, Baidu became the first Chinese company to be included in the NASDAQ-100 index.[7]
Baidu provides an index of over 740 million web pages, 80 million images, and 10 million multimedia files.[8] Baidu offers multimedia content including MP3 music and movies, and is the first in China to offer Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and personal digital assistant (PDA) based mobile search. Baidu released its low-cost smartphone, Changhong H5018.[9]

Contents

Name

“ Many people have asked about the meaning of our name. 'Baidu' was inspired by a poem written more than 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. The poem compares the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one's dream while confronted by life's many obstacles. '...hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood.' Baidu, whose literal meaning is hundreds of times, represents persistent search for the ideal. ”
The name "Baidu" is a quote from the last line of Xin Qiji's classical poem "Green Jade Table in The Lantern Festival" saying: "Having searched thousands of times in the crowd, suddenly turning back, She is there in the dimmest candlelight."
The context of the poem is that in ancient China, girls had to stay indoors and the Lantern Festival was one of the few times they could come out. In the sea and chaos of lantern lights, they would sneak away to meet their love and exchange promises to meet again next year.
A summary of the entire poem: Flowers bursting into bloom in the sky, stars falling like rain (fireworks/meteor shower), Whole streets filled with perfume, jeweled horses pulling ornate carriages, fish and dragon lanterns dancing throughout the entire night. A body decorated with golden thread and butterfly trinket, laughter that has a subtle fragrance. Having searched for this person until exhaustion, when suddenly turning back by chance, I find her standing lonely in the far end of the street in the waning light.

Development

In 1994, Robin Li joined IDD Information Services, a New Jersey division of Dow Jones and Company, where he helped develop a software program for the online edition of The Wall Street Journal.[11] He also did work on better algorithms for search engines and remained at IDD Information Services from May 1994 to June 1997.
In 1996, while at IDD, Li developed the RankDex site-scoring algorithm for search engines results page ranking[12][13][14] and received a US patent for the technology.[15] He later used this technology for the Baidu search engine.
On 31 July 2012, Baidu announced they will team up with Sina to provide mobile search results.[16]
On the 18th of November, 2012, Baidu announced that they would be partnering with Qualcomm to offer free cloud storage to Android users with Snapdragon processors.[17]

Services

Baidu offers several services[18] to locate information, products and services using Chinese-language search terms, such as, search by Chinese phonetics, advanced search, snapshots, spell checker, stock quotes, news, knows, postbar, images, video and space information, and weather, train and flight schedules and other local information. The user-agent string of Baidu search engine is baiduspider.[19][20] Also, a Baidu application for Apple's iOS is available.[21]
  • Baidu Map
  • Baidu started its Japanese language search service, run by Baidu Japan, the company's first regular service outside of China.[22] It includes a search bar for web pages and image searches, user help and advanced services.[23]
  • Baidu Post Bar provides users with a query-based searchable community to exchange views and share knowledge and experiences. It is an online community bound tightly with Baidu's search service.
  • Baidu News provides links to a selection of local, national and international news, and presents news stories in a searchable format, within minutes of their publication on the Web. Baidu News uses an automated process to display links to related headlines, which enables people to see many different viewpoints on the same story. Chinese government and Chinese industry sources stated that Baidu received a license from Beijing, which allows the search engine to become a full-fledged news website. Thus Baidu will be able to provide its own reports, besides showing certain results as a search engine. The company is already getting its news department ready. Baidu is the first Chinese search engine to receive such a license.[24]
  • Baidu Knows (百度知道) provides users with a query-based searchable community to share knowledge and experience. Through Baidu Knows, registered members of Baidu Knows can post specific questions for other members to respond and also answer questions of other members.
  • Baidu MP3 Search provides algorithm-generated links to songs and other multimedia files provided by Internet content providers. Baidu started with a popular music search feature called "MP3 Search" and its comprehensive lists of popular Chinese music, Baidu 500, based on download numbers. Baidu locates file formats such as MP3, WMA and SWF. The multimedia search feature is mainly used in searches for Chinese pop music. While such works are copyrighted under Chinese law, Baidu claims on its legal disclaimer that linking to these files does not break Chinese law. This has led other local search engines to follow the practice, including Google China(Hong Kong), which uses an intermediate company called Top100 to offer a similar MP3 Search service.
  • Baidu Image Search enables users to search millions of images on the Internet. Baidu Image Search offers features such as search by image size and by image file type. Image listings are organized by various categories, which are updated automatically through algorithms.
  • Baidu Video Search enables users to search for and access through hyperlinks of online video clips that are hosted on third parties’ Websites.
  • Baidu Space the social networking service of Baidu, allows registered users to create personalized homepages in a query-based searchable community.[25] Registered users can post their Web logs, or blogs, photo album and certain personal information on their homepages and establish their own communities of friends who are also registered users. By July 2009, it had reached 100 million registered users
  • Baidu Encyclopedia, is China's largest encyclopedia by users and page views/web traffic; second largest encyclopedia by article count (after Hudong).
    • China Digital Village Encyclopedia (中国数字乡村大百科全书), in June 2009, Baidu announced it would compile the largest digital rural encyclopedia in China, according to China Securities Journal. It is expected to include 500,000 administrative villages in China, covering 80% of the total 600,000 villages in China. Baidu is creating the content of this encyclopedia largely from participants of its 'rural information competition' (乡村信息化大赛) (xiangcun.baidu.com), on which it has spent roughly five million yuan on incentives. Baidu sees China's rural areas as great potential for electronic business (e-business), evidenced by the fact that revenue grew the fastest from agriculture, forestry, animals and fishery in the company's keyword promotion project, a crucial source of Baidu's total revenue. In addition to Baidu Encyclopedia, the company will scale up keyword promotion and take advantage of other products, such as Baidu Zhidao and Baidu Youa, to provide consultation, brand ad exhibitions and online network marketing/sales platform support, marketing information for rural tourism and promoting local products.[26]
  • Baidu Search Ranking provides listings of search terms based on daily search queries entered on Baidu.com. The listings are organized by categories and allow users to locate search terms on topics of interest.
  • Baidu Web Directory enables users to browse and search through websites that have been organized into categories.
  • Baidu Government Information Search allows users to search various regulations, rules, notices and other information announced by People's Republic of China government entities.
  • Baidu Postal Code Search enables users to search postal codes in hundreds of cities in China.
  • Educational Website Search allows users to search the Websites of educational institutions. Baidu University Search allows users to search information on or browse through the Websites of specific universities in China
  • Baidu Legal Search enables users to search a database that contains national and local laws and regulations, cases, legal decisions, and law dictionaries.
  • Baidu Love is a query-based searchable community where registered users can write and post messages to loved ones.
  • Baidu Patent Search enables users to search for specific Chinese patents and provides basic patent information in the search results, including the patent’s name, application number, filing date, issue date, inventor information and brief description of the patent.
  • Baidu Games is an online channel that allows users to search or browse through game-related news and content.
  • Baidu-Hexun Finance, a financial information Website,[27] with partner Hexun.com, a financial information service provider in China with news reporting and securities consulting licenses. Users can search or browse through economic and financial news, information relating to personal wealth management and related market statistics.
  • Baidu Statistics Search enables users to search statistics that have been published by the Government of the People's Republic of China
  • Baidu Entertainment is an online channel for entertainment-related news and content. Users can search or browse through news and other information relating to specific stars, movies, television series and music.
  • Baidu Tongji is Baidu's web analytics platform. It provides users with many reports about visitors to their website, such as a report on the source of visitors to their website, a user demographics report, reports on content viewed on site, and a heat map report.[28]
  • Baidu Dictionary provides users with lookup and text translation services between Chinese and English.
  • Baidu Youa, an online shopping/e-commerce platform through which businesses can sell their products and services at Baidu-registered stores.[29]
  • Baidu Desktop Search, a free, downloadable software, which enables users to search all files saved on their computer without launching a Web browser.
  • Baidu Sobar, a free, downloadable software, displayed on a browser's tool bar and makes the search function available on every Web page that a user browses.
  • Baidu Wireless provides various services for mobile phones, including a Chinese-input front end processor (FEP) for various popular operating systems including Android, Symbian S60v5, and Windows Mobile.
  • Baidu Anti-Virus offers anti-virus software products and computer virus-related news.
  • Baidu Safety Center, launched in 2008, provides users with free virus scanning, system repair and online security evaluations
  • Baidu Internet TV (known as Baidu Movies) allows users to search, watch and download free movies, television series, cartoons, and other programs hosted on its servers
  • Chinese-language voice assistant search services for Chinese speakers visiting Japan was launched in 2008, with partner Japanese personal handy-phone system operator Willcom Inc.
  • Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific,[30] joint venture with Discovery Communications, focusing on science, technology, space, natural history, engineering, paleontology, archaeology, history and culture.
  • Baidu Index (known as 百度指数) allows users to look up the search volume and trend for certain hot keywords and phrases. It can serve as a Baidu keyword research tool.
  • Baidu Bookmarks (known as Baidu Soucang) is a social bookmarking service supported by Baidu.com
  • Baidu Browser is a web browser first released as a beta in July 2011.[31] It has been noted that the user interface looks very similar to Google Chrome/Chromium.[32]
  • Baidu Yi is a smartphone operating system based on Android OS, announced in September 2011.[33]
  • Baidu Library is an open online platform for users to share documents. All the documents in Baidu Library are uploaded by the users and Baidu does not edit or change the documents. Users can read and download lecture notes, exercises, sample exams, presentation slides, materials of various subjects, variety of documents templates, etc. However, it is not completely free. In order to download some documents, users should have enough Baidu points to cover the points asked by the uploaders. Users could gain Baidu points by making contribution to Baidu Library and other users, such as uploading documents, categorizing documents, evaluating documents, etc.[34]
  • Baidu Experience is a product of Baidu primarily focusing on supporting the users with practical problems. In other words, it helps the users to solve the "how to do" problem. It was launched in October 2010. In architecture, Baidu Experience has integrated and reformatted Baidu Encyclopedia and Baike Knows. The first difference between Baidu Experience and Baidu Knows is that the former concentrates on specific "how to do" problems while the later contains a wider range of problems. The second difference is that users could share their experience without being asked on Baidu Experience.[35]
  • Baidu around You is a searching and sharing platform aiming at supporting the users with making their consumption decisions. There are currently 7 main categories of information on Baidu around You, including food, shopping, recreation, hotels, fitness, beauty and traveling. In addition, Baidu around You provides the users with convenient services and local information, partially coming from the users and searchable by cities.[36]

P4P

Baidu focuses on generating revenues primarily from online marketing services. Baidu's pay for placement (P4P) platform enables its customers to reach users who search for information related to their products or services. Customers use automated online tools to create text-based descriptions of their web pages and bid on keywords that trigger the display of their webpage information and link. Baidu's P4P platform features an automated online sign-up process that customers use to activate their accounts at any time. The P4P platform is an online marketplace that introduces Internet search users to customers who bid for priority placement in the search results. Baidu also uses third-party distributors to sell some of its online marketing services to end customers and offers discounts to these distributors in consideration of their services.
Baidu offers certain consultative services, such as keyword suggestions, account management and performance reporting. Baidu suggests synonyms and associated phrases to use as keywords or text in search listings. These suggestions can improve clickthrough rates of the customer's listing and increase the likelihood that a user will enter into a transaction with the customer. Baidu also provides online daily reports of the number of clickthroughs, clicked keywords and the total costs incurred, as well as statistical reports organized by geographic region.

ProTheme

Baidu offers ProTheme services to some of its Baidu Union members, which enable these members to display on their properties its customers' promotional links that are relevant to the subject and content of such members' properties. Baidu generates revenues from ProTheme services based on the number of clicks on its customers' links and share the revenues with its Baidu Union members in accordance with pre-agreed terms. Baidu's fixed-ranking services allow customers to display query-sensitive text links at a designated location on its search results pages. Its Targetizement services enable customers to reach their targeted Internet users by displaying their advertisements only when their targeted Internet users browse Baidu's certain Web pages.

Baidu TV

Baidu operates its advertising service, Baidu TV, in partnership with Ads it! Media Corporation, an online advertising agency and technology company. Baidu TV provides advertisers access to the websites of its Baidu Union members, allowing advertisers to choose Websites on which they post their video advertisements with the aid of its advertisement targeting and matching system. It also offers a brand advertising service, Brand-Link. In June 2008, Baidu launched My Marketing Center, a customized platform integrating industry information, market trends and business, and industry news and reports to assist existing customers in their sales and marketing efforts. Other forms of its online advertising services allow customers to display query sensitive and non-query sensitive advertisements on its websites, including graphical advertisements.

Baidu Union

Baidu Union consists of several third-party websites and software applications.[37] Union members incorporate a Baidu search box or toolbar and match its sponsored links with the content on their properties. Their users can conduct search via the Baidu search box or toolbar and can click the sponsored links located on their properties. Baidu has also launched programs through which it displays the online advertising of its customers on Baidu Union websites, and share the fees generated by these advertisements with the owners of these Baidu Union websites. As of May 2011, there were 230 thousand partner websites that displayed Baidu Union ads on their websites.[38]

Competition

Baidu competes with Google Hong Kong, Yahoo! China, Microsoft's Bing and MSN Messenger, Sina, Sohu's Sogou, Wikipedia, NetEase's Youdao, Tencent's Soso.com and PaiPai, Alibaba’s Taobao, TOM Online, Xunlei's Sogou and EachNet.
Baidu is the No. 1 search engine in China, controlling 63 percent of China's market share as of January 2010, according to iResearch.[39] The number of Internet users in China had reached 513 million by the end of December 2011, according to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center.[40]
In an August 2010 The Wall Street Journal article,[41] Baidu has played down its benefit from Google's moving its China search service to Hong Kong, but Baidu's share of revenue in China's search—advertising market grew six percentage points in the second quarter to 70%, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International.
It is also evident that Baidu is attempting to enter the internet social network market. As of 2011, it is discussing the possibility of working with Facebook, which would lead to a Chinese version of the international social network, managed by Baidu.[42] This plan, if executed, would face off Baidu with competition from the two popular Chinese social networks Renren[43] and Kaixin001[44] as well as induce rivalry with instant-messaging giant, Tencent QQ.[45]
On February 22, 2012 Hudong submitted a complaint to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce asking for a review of the behavior of Baidu, accusing it of being monopolistic.[46]

Censorship

According to the China Digital Times, Baidu has a long history of being the most proactive and restrictive online censor in the search arena. Documents leaked in April 2009 from an employee in Baidu's internal monitoring and censorship department show a long list of blocked websites and censored topics on Baidu search.[47] In May 2011, pro-democracy activists sued Baidu for violating the U.S. constitution by the censorship it conducts in accord with the demand of the Chinese government.[48]

Domain name hacked

On January 12, 2010, Baidu.com's DNS records in the United States were altered such that browsers to baidu.com were redirected to a website purporting to be the Iranian Cyber Army, thought to be behind the attack on Twitter during the 2009 Iranian election protests, making the actual site unusable for four hours.[49] Internet users were met with a page saying "This site has been attacked by Iranian Cyber Army".[50] Chinese hackers later responded by attacking Iranian websites and leaving messages.[51] Baidu later launched legal action against Register.com for gross negligence after it was revealed that Register.com's technical support staff changed the email address for Baidu.com on the request of an unnamed individual, despite their failing security verification procedures. Once the address had been changed, the individual was able to use the forgotten password feature to have Baidu's domain passwords sent directly to them, allowing them to pull off the domain hijacking.[52][53]

Baidu Advertising

Baidu's primary advertising product is called Baidu Tuiguang and is similar to Google Adwords and Adsense. It is a pay per click advertising platform that allows advertisers to have their ads shown in Baidu search results pages and on other websites that are part of Baidu Union.
Baidu sells its advertising products via a network of resellers.[54]
Baidu's web admistrative tools are all in Chinese, which makes it tough for non-Chinese speakers to use. Recently, a third party company began to develop a tool with an English-language interface for Baidu advertising programs.[55][56]

DNA Copyright technology

In April 2012, Baidu applied for a patent for its breakthrough in DNA copyright recognition technology. This technology will automatically scan files that are uploaded by internet users, and recognize and filter out content that may violate copyright law. This will allow Baidu to offer an infringement free platform. [5] [57]

Baidu workers arrested

On August 6, 2012 the BBC reported that three employees of Baidu were arrested on suspicion that they accepted bribes. The bribes were allegedly paid for deleting posts from the forum service. Four people were fired in connection with these arrests.[58]

See also

Portal icon People's Republic of China portal
Portal icon Beijing portal
Portal icon Companies portal
Portal icon Internet portal

References

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  2. ^ "Baidu.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2012-08-02.
  3. ^ "IR Contacts." Baidu. Retrieved on December 27, 2010. "Address: Baidu Campus, No. 10, Shangdi 10th Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100085 People's Republic of China."
  4. ^ "Baidu's 57 Products/Services: Introduction and History". China Analyst (CNAnalyst.com).
  5. ^ "Alexa Top 500 Global Sites". Retrieved November 12, 2011.
  6. ^ "The China Perspective, "China Economic Watch"". }
  7. ^ Chmielewski, Dawn C. (December 10, 2007). "Search site moves at the speed of China". Los Angeles Times.
  8. ^ "MSN Money – BIDU". MSN Money. Archived from the original on May 01 2006. Retrieved 2006-05-11.
  9. ^ "Baidu Smartphone". Retrieved 2012-05-16.
  10. ^ "The Baidu Story". Baidu.
  11. ^ Taipei Times: "Robin Li's vision powers Baidu's Internet search dominance" (Sep 17, 2006)
  12. ^ Greenberg, Andy, "The Man Who's Beating Google", Forbes magazine, October 5, 2009
  13. ^ Yanhong Li, "Toward a Qualitative Search Engine," IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 24–29, July/Aug. 1998, doi:10.1109/4236.707687
  14. ^ "About: RankDex", rankdex.com
  15. ^ USPTO, "Hypertext Document Retrieval System and Method", US Patent number: 5920859, Inventor: Yanhong Li, Filing date: Feb 5, 1997, Issue date: Jul 6, 1999
  16. ^ Sina http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19061997 "Sina and Baidu team up in China to focus on mobile" date: July 31, 2012
  17. ^ http://www.geekshut.com/baidu-and-qualcomm-partner-to-offer-free-cloud-storage/6788
  18. ^ Baidu products
  19. ^ "关于baiduspider". baidu.com. March 18, 2009.
  20. ^ "Baiduspider User-Agent String". HttpUserAgent.org. March 17, 2009.
  21. ^ Baidu MobileBy Beijing Baidu Netcom Science & Technology Co.,Ltd
  22. ^ Baidu Japan Inc.
  23. ^ "China's Google in Japan". Infoniac.com. March 23, 2007.
  24. ^ "Google's Lookalike is Expanding in China". Gadget4boys.com. January 23, 2007.
  25. ^ Baidu
  26. ^ [1] Baidu will compile the rural digital Encyclopedia
  27. ^ Baidu-Hexun Finance
  28. ^ Lawton, Tait. "A Thorough Guide to Baidu Analytics (Baidu Tongji)".
  29. ^ Youa.com
  30. ^ Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific
  31. ^ China's Baidu Joins Browser Battle, Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2011
  32. ^ Baidu’s New Browser Looks Strikingly Familiar, China Real Time Report – WSJ, July 19, 2011
  33. ^ "Baidu Looks To Leapfrog Google With Cloud-Based Mobile OS (Update)". TechCrunch. September 2, 2011. Retrieved September 7, 2011.
  34. ^ [2]
  35. ^ [3]
  36. ^ [4]
  37. ^ union.baidu.com
  38. ^ Lin, Susan. "Baidu's Content Network - Baidu Union". East-West-Connect.com. East-West-Connect.com.
  39. ^ Barboza, David (January 13, 2010). "Baidu's Gain from Departure Could Be China’s Loss". The New York Times.
  40. ^ Lawton, Tait. "Pretty Graphs on Chinese Internet User Demographics, January, 2012".
  41. ^ Fletcher, Owen (August 3, 2010). "Baidu's CEO Pursues Long-Term Growth". The Wall Street Journal.
  42. ^ 传百度与Facebook签合作协议 – Baidu signed a cooperation agreement with Facebook, ThinkingChinese, April 14, 2011
  43. ^ [renren.com Renren
  44. ^ [kaixin001.com Kaixin001]
  45. ^ Baidu and QQ aren't willing to remain outside the Chinese Social Network market, ThinkingChinese, April 2011
  46. ^ Yang, Yang (杨阳 Yáng Yáng). Translated by Guo Wei. "China's "Wikipedia" Submits Complaint about Baidu ." (Archive) Economic Observer. March 4, 2011. Issue 508, Corporation, Page 28. Retrieved on October 26, 2012. Original article: "百度：我是大哥 我不叫度娘." February 25, 2011. (Archive)
  47. ^ Baidu’s Internal Monitoring and Censorship Document Leaked (1), Xiao Qiang, China Digital Times, April 30, 2009
    Baidu’s Internal Monitoring and Censorship Document Leaked (2)
    Baidu’s Internal Monitoring and Censorship Document Leaked (3)
  48. ^ China, Baidu Sued In U.S. For Internet Censorship, Jonathan Stempel, Reuters, May 19, 2011
  49. ^ "Baidu hacked by 'Iranian cyber army'". BBC News. 2010-01-12. Archived from the original on January 13, 2010. Retrieved 2010-01-12.
  50. ^ "China's top search engine Baidu hacked". People's Daily. January 12, 2010.
  51. ^ Branigan, Tania (January 12, 2010). "'Iranian' hackers paralyse Chinese search engine Baidu". The Guardian (London).
  52. ^ Baidu Sues Register.com, Alleges Negligence in Hacking Attack
  53. ^ "Baidu: Registrar 'incredibly' changed our e-mail for hacker," Computer World, February 24, 2010. Accessed December 13, 2010.
  54. ^ Lawton, Tait. "Baidu Pay Per Click: 7 Tips for a Successful Campaign". SearchEngineJournal.com.
  55. ^ http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/06/glogou/
  56. ^ http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/csj/2012-11-07/14387777422.shtml
  57. ^ "Baidu Applies for DNA Copyright Recognition Technology Patent". BrightWire.
  58. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19149185

Further reading

External links

 http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-faq_pf#26140

Investor FAQs


Corporate Information
1.When was Baidu founded?
2.Where is Baidu located?
3.Who are the members of Baidu’s board of directors?
4.Who are Baidu’s independent auditors?
5.Who is Baidu’s transfer agent?
6.How many employees does Baidu have?
American Depository Shares (ADSs)
7.When did Baidu go public and what exchange does Baidu stock trade on?
8.What was the offering price at Baidu's initial public offering (IPO)?
9.What is the ADS to ordinary share ratio?
10.Has this ratio ever changed? If so, when and how?
11.Does Baidu pay a cash dividend?
Business
12.What is Baidu’s mission statement?
13.How does Baidu generate revenue?
14.What is Baidu Union?
15.What is Phoenix Nest?
16.What is Aladdin?
17.What is Box Computing?
18.What is Baidu's sales model?
19.What are Baidu's most popular products?
20.Who are Baidu’s customers?
21.Does Baidu operate in any countries outside of China?
Financial Reporting
22.Does Baidu issue quarterly reports and how can I get them?
23.Where can I listen to past Baidu earnings conference calls?
24.When does Baidu’s fiscal year end?
Corporate Social Responsibility
25.What is Baidu doing to help the community?
Contact Information
26.How can I contact Baidu’s Investor Relations?
1.When was Baidu founded?
 Baidu was established in 2000.
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2.Where is Baidu located?
 Baidu’s headquarters is in Beijing, China. The Company also has offices in Shanghai and major cities in Guangdong province as well as in Tokyo, Japan.
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3.Who are the members of Baidu’s board of directors?
 Please see our board of directors page: http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-govboard to learn more about our board members.
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4.Who are Baidu’s independent auditors?
 Ernst and Young Hua Ming
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5.Who is Baidu’s transfer agent?
 Maples Finance Limited
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6.How many employees does Baidu have?
 As of June 30, 2010, Baidu had 9,000 employees.
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7.When did Baidu go public and what exchange does Baidu stock trade on?
 Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) went public on August 5, 2005 on NASDAQ.
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8.What was the offering price at Baidu's initial public offering (IPO)?
 Baidu debuted at $27.
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9.What is the ADS to ordinary share ratio?
 One (1) Class A ordinary share is equal to ten (10) ADSs.
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10.Has this ratio ever changed? If so, when and how?
 Baidu changed the ratio of its American depositary shares ("ADSs") representing Class A ordinary shares from one (1) ADS for one (1) share to ten (10) ADSs for one (1) share, which took effect on May 12, 2010.
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11.Does Baidu pay a cash dividend?
 Baidu has never declared or paid any dividends, nor does it have any present plan to pay any cash dividends on its ordinary shares in the foreseeable future. We currently intend to retain most, if not all, of our available funds and any future earnings to operate and expand our business. Baidu’s board of directors has complete discretion over whether to distribute dividends. Even if our board of directors decides to pay dividends, the form, frequency and amount of our dividends will depend upon our future operations and earnings, capital requirements and surplus, financial condition, contractual restrictions and other factors that our board of directors may deem relevant.
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12.What is Baidu’s mission statement?
 Baidu’s mission is to provide the best way for people to find what they’re looking for.
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13.How does Baidu generate revenue?
 Baidu generates revenue by offering performance-based online marketing services and display advertisements through both Baidu organic websites and its affiliated websites (Union business).
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14.What is Baidu Union?
 Baidu Union is a program through which the company expands distribution of its customers’ sponsored links by leveraging traffic directed from Baidu Union members or by distributing Baidu’s customers’ paid links through Baidu Union members’ properties. Baidu makes payments to Baidu Union members for traffic acquisition, and recognizes gross revenue for the amount of fees it receives from its customers. Payments made to Baidu Union members are included in cost of revenues as traffic acquisition costs.
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15.What is Phoenix Nest?
 Phoenix Nest is an upgraded marketing platform which Baidu launched in April 2009. Through an enhanced algorithm that generates more relevant paid links and provides customers with additional tools and information to help them better manage their spending and achieve higher ROI, Phoenix Nest is designed to improve relevance in paid search and increase value for customers.
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16.What is Aladdin?
 Aladdin is a powerful open platform initiative to uncover and index useful parts of the hidden web and produce comprehensive and dynamic search results. We are working closely with webmasters for content inclusion to expand the utilities of the platform.
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17.What is Box Computing?
 The box computing concept is based on our belief that as technology becomes increasingly complex, the user interface will move toward simplification. A person can type a command into a box, similar to Baidu's search box, on any device screen and our system will process the command and take an appropriate action. The action could be to return a piece of information, run a software application or connect the person to online services directly.
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18.What is Baidu's sales model?
 Baidu sells its online marketing services through both its direct sales teams and its distribution network. Currently, Baidu has a direct sales presence in Beijing, Shanghai and major cities in Guangdong province while leveraging distribution networks in lower tier cities.
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19.What are Baidu's most popular products?
 Baidu’s core product is web search. In addition, Baidu powers many popular community-based products, such as Baidu PostBar, the world’s first and 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, to name but a few. Beyond these marquee products we also offer dozens of helpful vertical search-based products, such as Maps, Image Search, Video Search, News Search, and many more.
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20.Who are Baidu’s customers?
 Baidu has a diverse mix of online marketing customers, predominantly small and medium sized enterprises but including corporations of all sizes. These customers are broadly spread over all industries and geographies.
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21.Does Baidu operate in any countries outside of China?
 In addition to Baidu.com, Baidu also operates a Japanese search engine at www.baidu.jp, which targets the Japanese market.
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22.Does Baidu issue quarterly reports and how can I get them?
 Yes, Baidu issues quarterly earnings reports, usually in April, July, October and February. All these quarterly reports can be accessed here: http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-reportsAnnual.
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23.Where can I listen to past Baidu earnings conference calls?
 Archived webcasts of our past earnings conference calls can be accessed here: http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-presentations
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24.When does Baidu’s fiscal year end?
 Baidu’s fiscal year ends on December 31.
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25.What is Baidu doing to help the community?
 Baidu is committed to CSR on multiple fronts. We leverage our brand, technology platform and large base of users and partners to help our community. More detailed CSR projects can be found at csr.baidu.com.
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26.How can I contact Baidu’s Investor Relations?
 We love to hear from you and will always do our best to respond to queries in a timely fashion. To request additional information, you can fill out the Information Request form through the below page: http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-inforeq. Alternatively, you can email IR at ir@baidu.com. Our address and relevant numbers are below.

Baidu Campus
No. 10, Shangdi 10th Street
Haidian District, Beijing
China
100085
Tel. +86-10-5992-8888
Fax: +86-10-5992-0000


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