Baidu Tech has invested Rs 70 million in live streaming
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Chinese technology giant Baidu will invest $ 70.3 million in the live streaming sector, the company said, where it will face rivals Dwayne, China’s TickTock version and Queshore.
The news came as the three players shook the dominance in the exclusive two-to-two lawsuit.
Baidur Vice President Shen Du said last week that the company’s new investment would be spent on expanding its live-streaming user base and attracting high-quality content, according to Chinese financial publication Kaxin. Baidu, famous for operating search engines like Google, plans to increase its short video operations by sending traffic from the rest of its ecosystem to manufacturers’ content.
It will add Hawkan content to its own search engine results and is already planning to integrate it with a small video platform powered by IQ, a major Baidu-backed Chinese streaming platform.
Baidu has historically placed less emphasis on live streaming, and therefore lags behind its competitors in the sector. It hopes to be ready for the lost time to better target consumers using data from its search engine. Ping Xiaoli, general manager of the Baidu app, said the recent changes in consumer demand for live streaming give them a window of opportunity.
“Previously, subscribers used live streaming to let others play games and watch shows, but this year, we’ve increasingly seen people use live streaming for other purposes, such as learning,” he told an online conference last week. The sector has received great impetus due to the coronavirus novel, which has kept most parts of the country indoors since late January, with entertainment options growing online.
Baidu launched its own short video platform called Hawkan in 2017 that offers a mix of user-generated and professionally produced content. Growth has been slow, but it is now behind Dowin and Tencent-invested Queshore of Bytens, according to Tra Cousin, Hawking has about 30 million active users daily, while Dwayne claims 296 million and Queshu 214 million.
Baidu’s investment in several lawsuits for “unfair competition” against Baidans. The report said Monday that Queshui has filed a lawsuit against Duin in Beijing because the former app was searched instead of a paid Duin ad in the lead of a popular Chinese app store. In December, Baidu Bytens’s Genari Tutiao app filed a lawsuit against a news agency for “interfering” with search results in short form videos, with users searching Baidu Bytens short videos on platforms owned by Baidu.
