For a long time, Baidu’s PPC bid ranking has been subject to public moral condemnation for Putian Hospital and Wei Zexi issues. Baidu is also under pressure to cut off the medical division, which has a great impact on short-term profits.

It can be seen from the recent Baidu earnings report that Baidu’s ability to make profits has been restored. Judging from the new crown epidemic this year, Baidu’s big data has also provided a lot of help for the government’s work. Hundreds of millions of people use Baidu to find information about the outbreak.

Compared with the greatness of Ali and Tencent, Baidu seems to have been silent for too long. Not only has BAT’s position been questioned, it has also been surpassed by rising stars such as Toutiao and Meituan. At present, Baidu has a market value of about 45 billion U.S. dollars, less than one tenth of that of Ali and Tencent. Investors could not help asking, what happened to Baidu? Is Baidu so valued worth investing?

Search business demonstrates ability to make money

As the king of the PC era, Baidu’s performance in the mobile Internet era is slightly bleak. In the mobile Internet era, people have replaced apps with search engines in many scenarios. However, search reflects the basic needs of human beings: the need for information and knowledge. In the face of this complicated world, a person may have as many as tens or hundreds of questions every day. It is impossible to quickly find the answers in the APPs, and they can only resort to search engines.

Therefore, in the foreseeable future, search will not be replaced by APPs. Search is long-standing and continues to play an important role in people’s work and study life. In addition, with the disappearance of the Internet demographic dividend, traffic becomes more and more expensive, and Baidu’s search will have an increasing bargaining power for advertisers.

The guidance for the fourth quarter of 2019 and the annual report show that Baidu’s core business revenue is still growing. Baidu still earns more than $ 1 billion in gold in a single quarter. All these prove that in the era of mobile Internet, search will not be completely replaced.

In the future, Baidu’s core search advertising business should continue to grow. At present, Baidu is also working on information flow advertising business, using accurate AI big data technology, to outline the user’s urban protocol. The cake of the advertising business is huge, and it will grow larger with the development of the economy.

Toutiao to participate and expand the market together

Baidu’s search advertising is determined by the user’s search content. For example, a user searching for the term refrigerator is obviously interested in refrigerator-related information, and the system may push advertisements for refrigerator products. Information flow advertisements use algorithmic analysis of people’s browsing history and habits to infer people’s preferences, and push related information flow advertisements.

The information flow advertising business has developed rapidly, and the byte-beating revenue has skyrocketed. So, Byte Beat recently announced that the launch of a new search engine will threaten Baidu’s search business? Basically not. This is because the technical threshold for search is still very high. Baidu has been working on search technology for many years and has accumulated many years of technology. Whether it is Sogou, 360 search, or Alibaba, etc., have failed to shake Baidu’s absolute overwhelming advantage in search. In addition to the absolute leading of technology, Baidu has occupied people’s mind. When you think of search, you think of Baidu, and when you think of Baidu, you think of search. It’s hard to find other search engines that can replace Baidu’s position, and byte skipping is no exception.

The future of Baidu

Many factors have contributed to the BAT’s three strong standings in the past, and the gradual distance from now. The differences in the capabilities and patterns of founders and leaders are one of the important factors that caused Baidu to lag far behind the other two. In addition, Baidu’s public image crisis once put the company under pressure. However, judging from the outbreak this year, Baidu has gradually gained trust in the public domain.

Of course, Baidu’s slow and stagnant progress is also related to the departure of Google from China. In the short term, the absence of Google’s strongest competitor is a big plus for Baidu. However, without Google ’s short-arms competition, Baidu made money too easily. The days might have been too leisurely, and it even started a takeaway business.

Baidu has the core technology and excellent business model of leading peers. When Baidu was suppressed by the market to less than 40 billion US dollars, Baidu’s value was extremely underestimated. Baidu’s value is on the way to return.