Everyone talks about Google, few remember its Chinese cousin, Baidu. Last year, the made-in-China search engine was among the companies that created the most capital gains among its shareholders.
The good performance allowed Robin Li, the founder of the company, to become the second richest Chinese. Baidu's shares are up 63% in one year, according to Bloomberg data, and Li holds something like $11,9 billion
If the stock has soared on the Nasdaq in recent months, it is largely due to Li's aggressive buying campaign. The owner of Baidu has spent 1,8 billion dollars to acquire a Chinese company that develops applications for smartphones, 91 Wireless Websoft. A good example to understand how much the search engine cares about positioning on the mobile Internet, the most effervescent sector in the People's Republic at the moment.
Furthermore, among Chinese web companies, Baidu is second only to Tencent, a group specializing in video games which, however, has experienced dazzling success thanks to the mobile social network Wechat. Tencent boss Ma Huateng is fourth in the ranking of the richest Chinese, with an estimated net worth of $10,8 billion.
