Their total revenue tripled to about $17 million and yielded 14 times its earnings in the same period last year with first-quarter net profit of $4.4 million.
Baidu's ability to differentiate itself from Google and other major players in the search engine world by understanding the Chinese user and by focusing on providing the products and services that their users want helped Baidu become the number one Chinese search engine.
The Baidu Baikean, an alternate Chinese Wikipedia, was launched last month. This user-generated encyclopaedia, modelled on the US-based Wikipedia which is blocked by Beijing, is heavily self-censored to avoid offending the Chinese government.
Wikipedia was China's site of choice for finding information online until the Chinese government blocked users from accessing it in 2005. China's strict censorship laws blocks content that it deems a threat and online information is no different.
Baidu's chief Robin Li told the UK's Financial Times newspaper that it has barred users from including any "malicious evaluation of the current national system", any "attack on government institutions" or "promotion of a dispirited or negative view of life", according to the paper. A closer look at the copyright contract says that "Baidu owns all of the copyrights to material found on this website." Chinese net users find encyclopaedia entries, but Baidu looks like it won't be such a great site for collective knowledge generation as Wikipedia is.
Correspondents say the service highlights both the sensitivities of operating in the Chinese market and the opportunities for local companies by Beijing's blocks on thousands of overseas websites.
Last month Google unveiled its Chinese service with bullish forecasts and a robust defence of its decision to limit user access to certain internet sites. This competition looks set to grow and grow.
