Baidu Stocks Continue to Fall
Robin Li, also known as Li Yanhong, president of Baidu gives a speech on Chinese television in 2005. (China Photos/Getty Images)
Baidu founder Robin Li (aka Li Yanghong) apologized for overlooking it's management of advertisements in its fierce competition with Google China, but denied that others that didn't pay were excluded.
Even though the company canceled its paid search listing for companies that were unlicensed, the economic hit to the company was already apparent. Shares of the stock fell by a third, following the report. Yesterday, the shares hit $112 dollars, down from $179 per share last Friday.
Today Baidu announced that it would launch a new advertising system called "Phoenix Nest" that would fix it's competitive ranking system by showing ads on the right of the page instead of in the search. The company also said that it would fire certain employees involved in the scandal.
With the all the news surrounding this, one may overlook an important development in the Chinese press. The fact that the media outlet that exposed this scheme was the State-controlled China Central Television. Kudos to CCTV.
Comments
“Li … but denied that others that didn’t pay were excluded. ”
“The company also said that it would fire certain employees involved in the scandal. ”
If the company didn’t do anything wrong, where is the scandal?
I wonder even if people don’t trust Baidu, where would they turn? Baidu is popular not just b/c of its search capabilities, but b/c its reach in MP3 and the “贴吧”.
Apparently, Google China won’t have MP3 search. So far, it is not doing any “贴吧” either. I wonder whether the MSFT guy who runs Google China today is too much a MSFT-er?
Baidu is doing a great service to foster greater understanding of Chinese Language, Culture, history and a most convenient mode to broaden our knowledge! Please do now allow anything to undermine its success in this field