Ron Burgundy Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 By Alexei Oreskovic and Paul Carsten SAN FRANCISCO/BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Internet company Baidu Inc is poised to make more acquisitions this year to entice smartphone users to tap into its services, a strategy that will put it on a collision course with bigger rivals like Tencent Holdings Ltd. The biggest Internet search engine company in China saw mobile revenues grow last year to exceed, for the first time, a fifth of its total revenue as a $2.5 billion buying spree boosted mobile products. Chief Executive Robin Li wants to raise this stake, even at the expense of profit growth this year. "Whenever there is the opportunity to do an acquisition to buy us either time or resources or talent we will be open for that," Li told a briefing on Thursday after Baidu announced fourth-quarter revenues had soared by more than half year-on-year, exceeding its own forecasts. Baidu has been racing to catch up to Tencent, owner of the wildly popular messaging app WeChat, and e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, in the race to dominate screen space in China, the world's largest smartphone market where more than 80 percent of all Internet users access the web through mobile devices. View the full article Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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