Baidu Bids Adieu To Google Stake Increase

Search engine leader Google has been rumored to want a bigger stake in the Chinese Baidu.com presence.

Baidu roughly translates from Chinese as “a hundred times,” and is taken from an old love poem. But there isn’t much love for the prospect of Google acquiring a bigger stake in the company.

Baidu represents Google’s biggest opponent in China, one that stands in the way of greater advertising revenues generated from mainland businesses. Google has made three investments in Baidu, and is believed to own 3 to 4 percent of the privately held company.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt visited Baidu in late June, but the subject of his visit there has not been revealed. As for Google gaining more of an interest in Baidu, or even acquiring it, the company isn’t expressing much interest.

“Baidu is a Chinese language website with advanced technology as core competitiveness. Enjoying a huge market share in China, Baidu believes independent development is its best way out,” according to a Baidu statement reported by People’s Daily Online.

Baidu leads the search engine market with a share of nearly 38 percent. Google’s share in the first quarter was half that percentage, placing it third behind Yahoo in China. All of the search engines hope to garner bigger shares of the growing online advertising market there.

David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.