Baidu: Beating Google at its own game?

“Google is the closest thing the Web has to an ultimate answer machine,” yet, it did not have an answer to its own Chinese dilemma – how it can go into China and yet not be evil; how it can make its investments in China work and eventually be the leader. This case looks at two leading internet search and online advertising companies: Google and Baidu – its major Chinese rival that had achieved something that Microsoft had not yet managed – beating Google. It compares these two companies by looking at both the global and the local level in China and allows for discussions on strategy, financial health and performance, valuation and market dynamics, investment strategy on risk and correlation, and etc.