Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) to Form Joint Venture With Rakuten

Venture to Build China's Largest Online B2B2C Mall; Partnership with Japan's leading B2B2C e-commerce company to offer products to Chinese consumers

BEIJING, Jan. 27 -- Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) , the leading Chinese language Internet search provider, and Rakuten, Inc., the largest e-commerce website in Japan, today announced an agreement to jointly invest US$50 million over three years in a joint venture to build a B2B2C online shopping mall for Chinese Internet users.

B2B2C refers to an online marketplace that links and provides value-added services to both business to business and business to consumer.

The online mall will provide customers with high-quality merchandise from well-known Chinese and foreign brands as well as small and medium sized enterprises at competitive prices. Expected to go live in the second half of 2010, the mall is anticipated to be the largest online B2B2C shopping mall in China. According to the agreement, Rakuten will own 51% and Baidu will own 49% of the new joint venture.

Founded in 1997, and currently ranked 2nd in the global B2C e-commerce market, Rakuten is a pioneer in the B2C industry. The company operates Rakuten Ichiba, Japan's leading Internet shopping mall with over 30,000 participating merchants and over 47 million items registered on its e-commerce platform. Baidu, founded in 2000, is the world's largest Chinese language search engine. In addition to its web search platform, Baidu also hosts a range of popular community-oriented products and services, including Baidu Knows, Baidu Post-Bar, Baidu Encyclopedia, and many others.

"This is a very exciting development for Baidu," said Ren Xuyang, Baidu's vice president of marketing and business development. "As the Chinese Internet space continues its rapid development, an increasing number of businesses and consumers are engaging in e-commerce. I believe the platform that Rakuten and Baidu build will provide users with a diversified, satisfying shopping experience while driving the broader development of China's e-commerce space."

"Baidu, with its vast reach and deep user loyalty, is the perfect compliment to Rakuten's extensive experience in the online B2C sector," commented Kentaro Hyakuno, senior executive officer of Rakuten, Inc. "Through this joint venture, we not only are committed to providing users with the best possible online shopping environment, but also aim to create a superior platform that will grow alongside small and medium sized enterprises as well as the leading Chinese and global brands."

Source: Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU)