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
“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.
Sleeping man, farmers ride wave of live-streaming popularity in China
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.
However, Baidu faces an uphill battle to grab market share from apps like Douyin and Kuaishou, which have been focused on live-streaming for years and are already established in the space, said He Yixuan, an e-commerce analyst from research firm Analysys.
To stand out from other players, Baidu said it will use AI and big data to “build a live-streaming platform with a focus on information and knowledge users need”.
Baidu will also help its 3.8 billion content creators promote their content across its diverse platforms including search engine app Baidu, short video app Haokan and collaborative online encyclopaedia Baidu Baike, it said in a press release.
“We will build up our capacity to facilitate communication between content creators and users on all our platforms, letting users not only gain information and services they need but also communicate directly with content creators,” it added.