Baiduâs reputation is really bad even within China. And theyâve been lacking of innovations ever since they become dominant in search market in China (and itâs a big factor when Googleâs not competing in the same market).
But even that is becoming less and less the case nowadays because people are just using apps, e.g. WeChat, TouTiao (by ByteDance), JD, TMall, where Baidu has very little success.
They donât have much play in e-commerce, payment or social media where these are all dominated by other big players like Alibaba, JD.com, Tencent and new challengers like ByteDance. I think they do have some investments in JD.com and maybe some other smaller e-commerce companies but I donât think they are in controlling position.
Theyâve got an âopen sourceâ EV platform but again, I donât think itâs gaining any traction. Theyâve also got something like an AI âbrainâ a couple years back in their Silicon Valley lab but havenât heard anything about it in the past year.
Iâd ask the question âare there no other better Chinese companies to invest in at this pointâ?