Baidu shows one-year results: three major connection mechanisms form a synergy effect

Last year, Baidu CEO Robin Li announced that Baidu will transform its strategy from "connecting people with information" to "connecting people with services". As an important carrier for connecting people with services under Baidu, Baidu Mobile, Baidu Maps, Direct Numbers, Baidu Wallet, Baidu Takeout and other business lines have developed rapidly in the past year.

At the Baidu World 2015 Conference held today, Baidu Mobile Services Group showed the world the achievements and latest progress of Baidu in connecting people and services - Baidu Mobile became the first platform for "DuerOS", and the latest version 6.8 is available for early experience; Baidu Maps has transformed from a navigation tool to a service platform, and will focus on O2O travel; Direct Number has connected with 760,000 merchants in one year, and the annual order amount has increased by 90 times. Baidu Takeaway has ranked first in the national white-collar takeaway market with a market share of nearly 40% in one year.

"Mobile Baidu + Baidu Maps" super portal realizes multi-scenario access services

Baidu Mobile, Baidu Maps and Baidu Nuomi are the three most important entrances for Baidu to connect people and services.

With the goal of "connecting people and services", Baidu Mobile has been providing services on a large scale since the May Day holiday in 2014. So far, it has achieved remarkable results in life service verticals such as tickets, movie tickets, and takeout, allowing users to gradually develop the habit of finding services through Baidu Mobile. According to Dr. Li Kefeng, general manager of Baidu Mobile, as of the second quarter of this year, Baidu Mobile has more than 100 million daily active users, and exports more than 1 billion traffic to third parties every day, of which the proportion of service-related searches has gradually increased over the past year. The powerful connection capabilities make Baidu Mobile the preferred platform for the landing of "DuerOS" on mobile terminals. The addition of "DuerOS" will also allow Baidu Mobile to interact with users more naturally, understand user needs more intelligently, and provide services to users more efficiently.

As another strategic platform of Baidu connecting people and services, Baidu Maps has long begun its transformation from a navigation tool to a scenario-based service platform.

According to Li Dongmin, senior director of Baidu Mobile Services Group and general manager of Baidu Maps, Baidu Maps currently has the most comprehensive and extensive POIs in the industry, including more than 20 million life service POIs, and more than 70% of user searches on Baidu Maps are related to life services. Powerful data collection capabilities and basic service capabilities provide guarantees for Baidu Maps' transformation into an O2O life service platform. At present, Baidu Maps has successively connected to top-level life services such as Baidu Takeout, Baidu Nuomi, and Qunar, connected to travel platforms such as Uber and e-driver, launched car life services such as ride-sharing, and continuously accumulated resources for scenario-based life services.

Based on the two strategic service portals of Baidu Mobile and Baidu Maps, and the latest O2O "killer" Baidu Nuomi, Baidu has successfully achieved multi-point triggering and multi-scenario access services. It is reported that in the future, Baidu will gradually connect "DuerOS" to Baidu Maps and Baidu Nuomi to further enhance the service capabilities of the portals.

Build a service ecosystem connecting 3,600 industries

Connecting people and services not only requires an entrance to import traffic and aggregate services, but also requires 3,600 service providers to access the Baidu platform to provide users with a rich and high-quality service experience.

The exploration of the direct number mechanism over the past year has accumulated rich experience for Baidu's service ecosystem construction. Li Ming, general manager of Baidu's direct number business, demonstrated the achievements of the direct number construction ecosystem in the past year: 760,000 merchants have settled in, covering all walks of life such as catering, tourism, life services, automobiles, government affairs, e-commerce, education, real estate, golf, etc. Among them, Vanke Direct Number has more than 700 commercial housing orders in a single month, driving real estate transactions to exceed 1 billion yuan. Baidu Golf has been online for 3 months and has connected to nearly 300 golf courses in China and 6 golf courses in the United States, which is more than half of the total number of golf courses in the country. Based on the development of direct numbers, Baidu World launched a new O2O ecological unified entrance "Bai Lian" in 2015 - including three connection mechanisms: direct numbers, plug-ins, and store pages, covering service merchants of different types and sizes.

As a key part of Baidu's O2O ecosystem, Baidu Wallet has developed rapidly in connecting people and services in the past year, becoming the third largest payment platform after Alipay and WeChat Pay. At the sub-forum on connecting people and services on the same day, Zhang Zhenghua, general manager of Baidu Pay, also introduced the Baidu Yuanquan business platform, which can provide merchants with a full-process marketing solution. For merchants, the Yuanquan system can help merchants to accurately distribute preferential rights and interests based on geographic location, target users, and distribution channels to leverage mobile consumption. Users can also obtain targeted preferential information when using Baidu Search, Baidu Maps and other products, and they only need to use the bank card bound to Baidu Wallet to pay when consuming to automatically obtain relevant discounts.

The Direct Number and Baidu Wallet Source System embody Baidu's ability to connect 3,600 industries and build a win-win ecological closed loop - allowing service providers from all walks of life to access the Baidu platform more conveniently, share the resources and technical capabilities of the Baidu platform, and obtain considerable benefits, so that more partners can work with the Baidu platform to provide users with all-round services.

The launch of "DuerOS" by Baidu World this year reflects the "synergy effect" formed by the comprehensive strength of Baidu's products, technologies, and ecology. In the future, with the implementation of Baidu's three major connection mechanisms, "DuerOS" will build a bridge between real-world merchants and users, and further innovate the service search experience.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.