BEIJING, Oct. 28 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Baidu.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: BIDU), the leading Chinese language Internet search provider, today announced the official launch of a beta version of its online C2C platform, called "Baidu Youa" ( http://www.youa.com ). Baidu Youa is an online shopping system through which merchants can sell their products and services at Baidu-registered stores. The customers, driven to these stores primarily through Baidu's market leading search engine, will be able to use a Baidu-branded online payment system, BaiFuBao, to make purchases. BaiFuBao was created in-house by Baidu's research and development team and is ready to be utilized on the C2C platform.
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"Baidu Youa continues Baidu's tradition of providing the best possible online experience for our users," said Mr. Jun Yu, Baidu's vice president of products. "This new C2C platform provides user-friendly shopping with emphasis on customer service." Mr. Yu continued, "Our expansion into China's early-stage e-commerce market is a natural move for Baidu as Chinese netizens are becoming more comfortable shopping online. With our vast user community, technological expertise, mature product offering and deep understanding of Chinese Internet landscape, we believe that we have a competitive edge in China's C2C arena and look forward to taking full advantage of the growth potential of this sector of the Internet."
In the invitation-only preliminary testing stage, 10,000 sellers were selected from over 100,000 applications to become the first merchants of Baidu Youa. Meanwhile, 50,000 users from Baidu's online community platforms were selected to be Baidu Youa's first customers. In the short test period, merchants uploaded more than 1 million items for sale.
About Baidu
Baidu.com, Inc. is the leading Chinese language Internet search provider. As a technology-based media company, Baidu aims to provide the best way for people to find information. In addition to serving individual Internet search users, Baidu provides an effective platform for businesses to reach potential customers. Baidu's ADSs, each of which represents one Class A ordinary share, are currently trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "BIDU."
Safe Harbor Statement
This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "confident" and similar statements. Among other things, quotations from management in this announcement contain forward-looking statements. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about Baidu's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in our annual report on Form 20-F and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release is as of October 28, 2008, and Baidu undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.
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