September 17, 2007
Is Baidu's Biggest Competitor In China? (BIDU)

According to MarketWatch, Chinese news portal, Sina (SINA), plans to launch an advertising program with bloggers who post content on its site. "Sina's move to monetize its massive blog page view inventory (more than 200 million page views a day), which has been building its "Ad Alliance," sites that run Baidu advertisements."

Baidu's (BIDU) currently trade at $235 up from a 52-week low of $82. It has widely been assumed that the Chinese search engine's biggest competitor is Google (GOOG), which currently holds the No.2 spot in search market share in the world's most populated country.

But, if Chinese company's like Sina can take advertising from Baidu, its shares might come under pressure. Sina has ample reason to want to take a piece of Baidu's hide. SINA trades at 10x revenue, while BIDU is at 50x. From that height, it's a long way down.

Douglas A. McIntyre

This blog is reprinted by permission from 24/7 Wall St, © 2007 24/7 Wall St., LLC All rights reserved.

(Source: MarketWatch)