Fidelity parent reports it's the largest holder of Baidu.com stock

Boston Business Journal

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FMR Corp. reported Monday it holds a 12 percent stake in Baidu.com Inc., making it the largest institutional shareholder in the Beijing Web search company that some call the Google of China.

FMR is based in Boston and is the corporate parent of Fidelity Investments.

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Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) held its initial public offering of American depositary shares last August, with shares rocketing from an offering price of $27 per share to $123 on the first day of trading. The issue traded at just under $60 per share Monday.  Am 9 Mai kommen Zahlen, und bis dahin werden wier mit grosser Sicherheit steigen...........Gap-closed 72-73$ CIAO  

China's Baidu.com Posts 1Q Profit Jump
Wednesday May 10, 5:14 am ET
China's Baidu.com Posts 1st Quarter Profit, Sales Jump

BEIJING (AP) -- China's largest Internet search provider, Baidu.com Inc., said its first quarter profit and sales surged as its customer base expanded in the world's second-largest online market.

Baidu shares soared nearly 22 percent on U.S. markets in late-session trading.

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For the quarter through March, the Beijing-based company said it earned 35.2 million yuan ($4.4 million; euro3.5 million), or 1.02 yuan per share (13 cents per American depositary share). A year ago, the company earned just 2.5 million yuan, or 0.08 yuan per share.

Sales tripled to 135.6 million yuan ($16.9 million), compared with last year's 45.7 million yuan.

"The inescapable conclusion is that Baidu is more dominant and executing much better than even some of the strongest cheerleaders out there could have imagined," said Jason Brueschke, director of China Internet research for Citigroup in Hong Kong.

China has the world's No. 2 population of Internet users after the United States, with more than 111 million people online.

Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 12 cents per ADS, including stock options, on sales of $15.1 million, according to a poll by Thomson Financial.

"Baidu posted another strong quarter as we continued to extend our leadership in the Chinese search market," said Robin Li, chairman and chief executive, in a statement. "Traffic growth remained strong as we continued to improve our core search function and enhance user experience."

Excluding stock options costs, the company earned 43.5 million yuan, ($5.4 million), or 1.26 yuan per share (16 cents per ADS).

The strong performance appeared to be the result of Baidu's yearlong focus on building up its search technology to appeal to Chinese Web users, along with a highly motivated staff, Brueschke said.

"Probably for the remainder of 2006 if not longer, I expect Baidu, quarter in and quarter out, to extend its lead over the competition," Brueschke said.

Baidu's chief Chinese competitors in search are Sina.com and Sohu.com, while industry giant Google is trying to build up its position in China after a late entry.

For the second quarter, Baidu said it expects sales between 186 million yuan ($23.3 million) to 193 million yuan ($24 million).

On the U.S.-based Nasdaq Stock Market, shares jumped $13.42, or 22 percent, to $74.80 in after-hours electronic trading, having earlier closed down $2.29, or nearly 4 percent, at $61.38.

The company has a market capitalization of more than $2 billion.  

 

 

Earnings Preview: Baidu.com
Tuesday July 25, 10:12 am ET
Baidu.com Expected to Meet or Beat Average Analyst Expectations for the Second Quarter

NEW YORK (AP) -- Baidu.com Inc. reports earnings for the fiscal second quarter July 26. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst opinion related to the period.

OVERVIEW: The Beijing-based Chinese language search engine nabbed a 43.9 percent share of traffic in the first quarter, according to Morgan Stanley analysts, making it the Google Inc. of the mainland.

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The company offers search in Chinese characters and a Romanized phonetic system called pinyin, plus high-traffic bulletin boards, mobile phone services and desktop search.

Baidu.com also has an auction-style paid advertising platform akin to what Google offers marketers.

In the second quarter, Baidu.com announced a partnership with Hewlett-Packard Co. to build its search technology into Web browsers on some PCs sold in China, starting in October. The company also announced a memorandum of understanding with Intel Corp. to cooperate on developing search for computers and wireless devices.

Also in the quarter, Google sold its 2.6 percent stake in the company, valued at about $60 million.

China's wireless sector took a hit in July when the country's major wireless telecom company, China Mobile Ltd., issued rules aimed at cleaning up billing practices among "wireless value-added service providers," or companies that sell content, ring tones and other add-ons for cell phones. But investors in Baidu.com, which offers some wireless services in addition to its core search business, barely blinked.

BY THE NUMBERS: In May, the company said it expected second-quarter revenue to reach $23 million to $24 million, more than double its year-ago revenue.

Analysts, on average, are looking for the company to earn 18 cents per share on sales of $23.5 million, according to a Thomson Financial poll.

ANALYST TAKE: Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto rates Baidu.com "Sell," though the company should report second-quarter revenue in line with his estimate of 193 million Chinese yuan renminbi, or about $24 million at the current rate.

In a July 11 note to investors, Noto added that he expects revenue to grow 42 percent from the first quarter, which assumes 13,000 new advertising customers and 22 percent increase in revenue per customer.

"Baidu likely continued to see strong organic traffic growth and may have benefited from Google.com's inaccessibility at several points during the quarter," wrote Noto.

Some analysts worry that Google and Yahoo's local efforts threaten Baidu.com's lead, but Noto wrote that international competition "could have a net benefit as it should help to accelerate the development of the industry."

Andrew Collier, an analyst for New York Global Securities, maintained his "Buy" rating for Baidu.com and issued a second-quarter revenue estimate of $24.4 million following meetings with four Chinese advertising distributors in June.

Collier wrote that distributors saw revenue growth from search ad buys. However, conflicts were brewing between Baidu.com's direct sales staff and distributors which could hurt growth in the future.

The analyst noted that he is already "hearing increasing reports of significant discounting from competing search engines, which will eventually cause more sophisticated customers to jump ship from Baidu's platform."  

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - Citigroup has maintained its ""buy"" rating on China's Baidu.com and raised the company's price target to 195 usd from 150 usd, saying the company is its new ""top pick"" among China Internet stocks.

Citigroup said it expects the company to perform well in the second and third quarters with the outlook for the second half ""robust.""

Citigroup sees Baidu continuing to dominate the China search market on the back of improved eCommerce and credit card services in China over the coming years.

""We believe this improvement has come at the expense of smaller players, who account for only around 10 to 15 pct of the market, and not Baidu, which still holds a commanding 65 to 70 pct share of search traffic, and likely an even larger share of revenues,"" it said.

At the end of trading on the Nasdaq yesterday, Baidu was up 18.43 usd, or 10.97 pct, at 186.41 usd.  

Baidu.com Inc. (BIDU) reported second quarter net income of RMB141.9 million or RMB4.19 per share, compared to RMB58.47 million or RMB1.69 per share in the year ago quarter. Non-GAAP net income for the quarter was RMB150.8 million or RMB4.45 per share, compared to RMB70.20 million in the last year quarter.

Total revenues for the quarter increased to RMB401.3 million from RMB191.63 million in the prior year quarter.

For third quarter, the company expects revenues ranging from RMB492 million to RMB506 million, representing a 106% to 111% increase from the corresponding period in 2006 and a 23% to 26% increase from the second quarter of 2007.  

Bin seit Emission dabei und bleibe es auch!! Ziel wie Google 500$ max. in ca.2 Jahren!
Gruß, heavymax._cooltrader
 

und keiner will es merken...
Die Analysten von RBC Capital Markets stufen die Aktie von BAIDU.COM (ISIN US0567521085/ WKN A0F5DE) weiterhin mit dem Rating "outperform" ein. Das Kursziel werde von 302 USD auf 333 USD angehoben. (18.09.2007/ac/a/u) Analyse-Datum: 18.09.2007

The Baidu Story

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.

Baidu chose a poetic Chinese name because it wants the world to remember its heritage. As a native speaker of the Chinese language and a talented engineer, Baidu focuses on what it knows best - Chinese language search. Applying avant-garde technology to the world's most ancient and complex language is as challenging as it is exciting. At least people here at Baidu think so. As having diligently disclosed in the Prospectus of our recent Initial Public Offering, we believe there are at least 38 ways of saying "I" in Chinese. It is important that we master all the ways of addressing oneself in Chinese because our users depend on us to address every one of their daily queries. And trust us, pin pointing queries in the Chinese language is an art rather than a science.

Our mission is to provide the best way for people to find information. To do this we listen carefully to our users' needs and wants. Have we collected all the Chinese web pages they want to see? Are the pages current and up to date? Are the search results closely related to their queries? Did we return those search results instantly? To improve user experience, we constantly make improvements to our products and services. For example, we introduced "phonetic" or "pin-yin" search which allows our users to type in Chinese keywords using English alphabets. This feature is designed to skip the switching from English inputting to Chinese inputting and for when the user is not sure of the written form of a keyword. Our users definitely notice the many little things that we do differently to ensure a simple and reliable search experience every time.

In addition to serving individual users, we also serve as a media platform for online marketing customers. We not only provide our customers easy access to one of the largest online audiences in China but also targeted groups with defined interests as indicated by queries. Unlike traditional online advertising services which charge by flat fee, our marketing products and services are performance based. Our Pay for Performance model has taken the market by storm because it is cost effective and measurable.

We know that a lot of interesting things are going on in the Internet space, but we don't want to lose focus. China's Internet search industry is only a newly discovered territory. We see vast untapped grounds in our home base and we believe there are still plenty of prizes to be claimed by the best players.  

The large number of Chinese internet users have made Baidu, the Chinese language search engine surpass Microsoft and rank the third in the global internet search business, according to the report newly released by ComScore, a well-known global Internet information provider. At the same time, South Korea's NHN has taken fifth place. Microsoft slipped into fourth place. It is the first time that Microsoft has fallen out of top three in this field.

The report pointed out that it is the number of language users that enables regional search engines to rise so dramatically in the global Internet business.

Qin Chuan, an Internet analyst agrees with the report. He even thinks Baidu and NHN can possibly beat other global search engines, for example Google, if they are fully accessible to their users. Meanwhile he pointed out that Microsoft has not finished its strategic adjustment to the search business and this is why Microsoft has declined though the company has strong technical support.

For more details, please read the full story in Chinese. (http://www.bbtnews.com.cn/mainland/channel/29783.shtml)
名次　　公司　　搜索量(次/月)

　　1 　　　谷歌　　370亿

　　2 　　　雅虎　　85亿

　　3 　　　百度　　33亿

　　4 　　　微软　　22亿

　　5 　　　NHN　　20亿  

China's Baidu to enter e-commerce market

Baidu Inc (Nasdaq: BIDU) , China's leading search engine company, plans to enter the e-commerce market by launching customer-to-customer (C2C) online services in 2008, the company said in a statement.

Baidu said it expects to build one of the biggest C2C online trading platform, basing on its search technologies and online community.

Baidu has already set up a separate department to operate the platform , it said.