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Baidu
Tech

Chinese internet giant Baidu invests US$70.5 million in live streaming amid coronavirus-led boom

  • Baidu says it will promote live-streaming services more actively and hopes to cultivate 1,000 live-streaming stars
  • It faces stiff competition from established players such as Douyin and Kuaishou

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Baidu's company logo is seen at its headquarters in Beijing December 17, 2014. Photo: Reuters
Che PanandSarah Dai
Baidu, China's biggest internet search company and artificial intelligence (AI) champion, said it is investing a further 500 million yuan (US$70.5 million) to boost its live-streaming services, aiming to cultivate 1,000 star content creators amid a surge in online users during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Baidu will promote the live-streaming business more proactively [this year],” said Baidu executive vice-president Shen Dou at the company’s annual 2020 Wanxiang Conference on Wednesday.

Shen said Baidu’s apps and platforms saw an average of 1 billion daily visits during the height of the coronavirus outbreak, giving it a solid edge over competitors. “Data gleaned from our search engine gives us a clearer understanding of the types of live-streaming content users want,” he added.

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While live-streaming has been around for years, the coronavirus pandemic has seen a spike in the popularity of such services, with millions of Chinese people turning to live-streaming and e-commerce platforms amid citywide lockdowns across the country.
Over the recent Lunar New Year period at the end of January, users on Douyin – the mainland Chinese version of TikTok – spent an average of 99 minutes on the app each day, compared to 67 minutes during the festive season last year, a QuestMobile report in February showed. Kuaishou, Douyin’s closest competitor, also saw a rise in average daily usage time from 44 minutes to 71 minutes during the same period, the report said.

The size of China’s live-streaming market reached 433.8 billion yuan in 2019 and is expected to be double that in 2020, according to a report by data analysis firm iiMedia Research in February.

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