Baidu might be the internet giant in China, but in India, despite having a bunch of popular Android apps, the leading Chinese-language internet search provider has some serious catching up to do. This could be why the company is going aggressive, at least when it comes to getting Indian developers to take its platform seriously.
The company is going to offer 100% revenue for developers who sign up for the company’s DU Ad platform. Josh Fenn, senior marketing manager of Baidu Inc.’s Global Business Unit, says this DU Plus project will be a limited period offer, but it certainly highlights the intentions of the this company.
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“Our advantage is that we have seen how internet grew in China. We believe we have this perspective of what people in emerging markets are facing thanks to our experience in China,” explains Fenn.
In India, the company is going to push for a more localised approach promoted by the Baidu Mobo Market which is already available in Hindi, Bangla, Marathi, Tamil and Urdu with Telugu launching soon.
Baidu built the foundational elements of the internet in China, with its search engine and map platform. The company hopes it will be able to do the same with digital infrastructure in India starting with its app platform. Though India is the latest market where Baidu has launched an office, it already has some interesting numbers for its apps here with the marketplace alone clocking 4.5 million monthly active users.
The company is also gung-ho about big data and machine learning and hopes to plug in learnings from its institute of deep learning into its ad network. “What we have done for the DU Ad platform in use data from 1.6 billion users and use that to offer highly targeted advertisements. This is completely plug and play for developers. Our peak selection algorithm will always ensure that our ads have the highest revenue,” Fenn says.
