Business Week: Baidu Is Easy To Get &Nbsp In China.

The article is summarized as follows:

Hand in hand

Like many CEOs, Baidu's Robin Li also has a large number of admirers. He even has his fans club.

At the annual Baidu World Conference, members of the fans club will gather in Beijing to try to get close to their admirers.

However, some things do not mean that it seems that the loyalty of these young girls to Robin Li is also "limited". A girl says that if she wants to know what is going on abroad, she will use Google.

The world knows Baidu, that is, from Google's withdrawal from the Chinese market. Baidu's share price has doubled since Google left China in January this year.

Now Baidu has occupied about 73% of the domestic market share. In the global pure network company's market capitalization ranking, Baidu ranked fifth after Google, Amazon, Tencent and eBay.

Baidu is now 57% larger than YAHOO, and PiperJaffray analyst King Mingst (GeneMunster) says Baidu is doing the best business in the world. It has the largest Chinese Internet users in the world backing up its profits.

Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, admitted: "it's rare to have a big cake, but we gave it to Robin Li for EricSchmidt."

In fact, the conflict between Google and Baidu has long planted seeds. At the end of 2004, Google founder Sergei Brin (SergeyBrin) and Larry Paige (LarryPage) visited China during their visit to China.

Baidu will arrange the meeting on the National Day holiday, so the office is empty, which makes Google executives unable to know the number of engineers in Baidu.

Brin and page also rejected Baidu's Subway sandwiches lunch because Google's two founders were sick before eating uncooked food in India, so they were very careful.

When brin asked if Baidu's icon was a dog's paw, Robin Li corrected him with no mercy. It was a bear's paw.

Attacked

Baidu has been criticized for its artificial intervention in Baidu's search results, violating freedom of information dissemination, and using this to suppress competitors.

But Robin Li argues that Baidu's manipulation of search results is just to comply with the relevant laws, so that users and investors will not be disappointed. Baidu, which is prohibited by law, must be shielded.

Robin Li said: "I am an entrepreneur, not a politician, and I do not need to respond at all."

Another reason why Baidu can win the market share is also what people have been criticised for because it provides a large number of free music links. It is alleged that Baidu's 40% traffic comes from music downloads. Baidu argues that it only provides users with links to popular music websites, but does not participate in piracy.

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Overseas expansion

Robin Li ignored these accusations. He focused more on Baidu's future development, and actively sought expansion in the fields of games, e-commerce, online payment and so on. Baidu also built a website like Hulu, and Baidu was also expanding its overseas market. Robin Li said developers were plating Baidu into twelve languages. Robin Li said, "I hope that ten years later, Baidu will become a household name and half the world will know."

But it is not easy to get the confidence of foreigners in China.

"Why do I believe in Baidu?" many people will ask this question.

To this end, Baidu hired senior Internet media personage Guo Yiguang as director of international media relations, promoting Baidu to the whole world.

Baidu believes that it is not evil, but is misunderstood. It hopes the whole world will understand it and believe it.

The best way to promote Baidu is to sell Robin Li.

But Robin Li's speech was dull and boring, and he was careful when interviewed by the media. His friends and colleagues said he was still an engineer in his bones. Robin Li gave everything he had to Baidu. There were countless nights when Robin Li drove home and went straight to bed, because he was too tired to walk to the front door.

Robin Li is full of confidence in Baidu's future. According to the public earnings report, Robin Li has never sold Baidu shares.

Robin Li has also begun to develop his international image recently. In July, he participated in the Allen&Co. 's annual meeting in Iowa. For the first time, Robin Li felt that he had found a close ally: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (MarkZuckerberg).

The two men talked several times.

In November 15th, Robin Li will also attend the Silicon Valley open forum at the Web2.0 summit held in San Francisco for the first time.

But Robin Li's biggest ally is his American investors.

Ten years ago, Robin Li was an introverted search engineer who didn't expect to become a billionaire.

Xiong Xiaoge, founding partner of IDG capital, said Robin Li had all the qualities of a successful entrepreneur.

In 2000, IDG invested $1 million 500 thousand in Baidu, and in 2005, when Baidu IPO, IDG bought a $170 million stake.

Xiong Xiaoge said they were worried about Robin Li's marketing skills. He seemed too quiet.

Scott Wachak, an angel investor in California, has invested $1 million 250 thousand in Baidu, and has finally made hundreds of millions of dollars in ScottWalchek.

He said that in the early days of Baidu's development, he and almost every American investor played a different tune with Robin Li.

Wachak said, "we hardly agree with everything we think he should do.

But he's always right. "

Shoulder heavy responsibilities

Baidu has a unique local advantage over rivals such as Google.

But with other Chinese Internet companies starting to build their own search engines, Robin Li's position as a western enterprise has already been established.