Baidu Inc. has fallen out of the top five most valuable publicly traded Chinese internet companies after its market capitalisation slid below that of gaming and e-commerce pioneer NetEase Inc.
Baidu has seen its market valuation stagnate even as Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings – which, along with Baidu are referred to by the acronym BAT – surged ahead as China’s internet population embraced mobile payments and shopped, messaged and sought entertainment on their smartphones. Baidu has had a stranglehold on search in China with 70 per cent of the market, especially after Google exited in 2010. But a shift in internet usage patterns has chipped at that dominance, with the rise of self-contained super-app ecosystems by rivals like Alibaba and Tencent. A user could quite easily watch a movie, read news, shop online and order takeaway food without having to leave one of these walled communities or go to a traditional search engine.