Chinese tech giant Baidu is going to invest $70.3 million into the live-streaming sector in a bid to take on rivals Douyin, China’s version of Tiktok, and Kuaishou in that space. The move comes in the wake of the three players jostle for dominance amidst a series of tit-for-tat lawsuits, and as Baidu on Monday announced better-than-expected revenue for the March quarter, causing its U.S.-listed shares to rise 8% in extended trading.
Baidu’s new investment will be spent on growing its live-streaming user base and attracting high quality content creators, according to Baidu’s vice president Shen Dou. Baidu, best known for operating a Google-like search engine, plans to boost its short video operations by sending traffic from the rest of its ecosystem to creators’ content.
Haokan content will be added to its own search engine results, and meanwhile, plans to integrate it with the short video platform run by iQiyi, a major Baidu-backed Chinese streaming platform.
The company had less emphasis on live-streaming, and so lags behind its competitors in the sector. It hopes to make up for lost time by using data from its search engine to better target consumers. Ping Xiaoli , general manager of Baidu App, said that recent changes to consumer demands when it comes to live-streaming gives them a window of opportunity.
“Previously, consumers used live-streaming mainly to watch others play games and perform shows, but since this year, we’ve increasingly seen people use live-streaming for a lot of other purposes such as learning,” Xiaoli said. The sector has seen a big boost because of the novel coronavirus, which has kept much of the country locked up indoors since late January, shifting entertainment options increasingly online.
Haokan was launched in 2017, which offers a mix of user-generated and professionally generated content. Growth has been slow, however, and it now trails massively behind Bytedance’s Douyin and the Tencent-invested Kuaishou. Haokan has around 30 million daily active users, while Douyin claims 296 million and Kuaishou 214 million, Caixin reports.
Baidu also forecast second-quarter revenue above expectations, as China’s economy gets back on track after coronavirus shutdowns. “With the pandemic coming under control in China, offline activities are rebounding and Baidu stands to benefit from a restart of the Chinese economy,” said Robin Li, Baidu co-founder and chief executive.