Last Updated -
January 28, 2026
Explore the business model, global strategy, and market performance including insights into its position in China.
Baidu, Inc. was founded in 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu and is headquartered in Beijing. Baidu was founded as a search engine business in 2000 and remains anchored in search and information discovery. Its mission is “to make the complicated world simpler through technology,” shaping a long-running focus on artificial intelligence across consumer and enterprise products. The company reports results through two segments, Baidu Core and iQIYI.
Baidu Core centers on the Baidu App and its search-plus-feed mobile ecosystem, which reached 679 million monthly active users in December 2024. It also includes Baidu AI Cloud, offering IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, plus personal cloud products such as Baidu Drive and Baidu Wenku. Baidu’s generative AI strategy is built around the ERNIE foundation model family and ERNIE Bot, with upgrades through ERNIE 4.0 Turbo in 2024. In early 2026, Baidu said its Ernie Assistant had surpassed 200 million monthly active users.
Baidu also develops autonomous driving through Apollo, including Apollo Go, which exceeded 9 million accumulated rides by January 2025 and has run 100% fully driverless operations across China since February 2025. In 2024, more than 96% of Baidu’s revenue came from mainland China, where the company is often compared to Google for its search business.
Baidu’s earnings engine sits inside Baidu Core, where online marketing remains the largest revenue stream. In 2024, Baidu Core online marketing revenue was RMB 73.0 billion, down 3% year over year, reflecting weaker demand from parts of the offline economy. Baidu sells search, feed, and other ad formats mainly on a cost-per-click basis, supported by its proprietary ad platform and “search plus feed” traffic.
Baidu reports two operating segments, Baidu Core and iQIYI. IQIYI is a streaming business with its own subscription and advertising dynamics, and it reported RMB 29.2 billion revenue in 2024.
Baidu remains a major destination for intent-driven search and information discovery in China, but ad budgets and user attention have shifted toward super-apps and short-video platforms. Baidu’s filings flag that customers have many channels for promotion and that users can spend more time on other platform types than on search-plus-feed experiences. In cloud and AI services, competitive intensity has risen as ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei push AI infrastructure and enterprise deployments.
China’s internet market is dominated by domestic platforms and governed by local content, data, and algorithm rules. Baidu’s Mobile Ecosystem is anchored by the Baidu App, which reached 679 million MAUs in December 2024. Baidu remains the leading search engine in China, with about 57% share in December 2025 on Statcounter’s all-platform measure.
Baidu is pushing AI into daily workflows through ERNIE. In December 2024, ERNIE handled about 1.65 billion API calls per day, and Ernie Assistant surpassed 200 million monthly active users in early 2026. ERNIE Bot is listed among generative AI services that completed filing with China’s internet regulator.
In mobility, Apollo Go exceeded 9 million accumulated rides by January 2025 and began 100% fully driverless operations across China in February 2025, supported by city-level permits in places like Wuhan, Chongqing, and Beijing.
Baidu is shifting from an ad-led search company to an AI-first platform where cloud, models, and autonomous driving carry more of the growth load. That shift matters because Baidu’s ad business is under pressure. In Q3 2025, Baidu reported a sharp drop in core online advertising revenue, while cloud and other non-marketing revenue grew 21% to RMB 9.3 billion.
This Company Profile was written by Dominik Diemer
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