Baidu Campus, Beijing, China. Image by hwanghsuhui, via Wikimedia Commons
Chinese-language search engine Baidu has decided to try and capture the massive mobile internet market in China by launching its own mobile browser, Baidu Explorer.
Baidu is already the dominant search engine China, which has 538m online users, but with 388m of these users accessing the internet via mobile phones, the company needs to tap into this vast market.
Other mobile products from Baidu include a mobile operating system that appears on low-cost smartphones the company produces with its manufacturing partners. But, with Baidu Explorer, it hopes to reach other smartphone users. The target, according to Reuters, is to have Baidu Explorer downloaded by 80pc of Android users in China by the end of this year.
Though there is already strong competition in the mobile browser market, Baidu claims its browser is 20pc faster than its rivals based on internal tests. It also has strong HTML5 compatibility and users can run HD video through the browser without having to download additional apps or software.
