Baidu Buys Majority Stake in Nuomi
Baidu’s efforts to extend its business beyond search have led the company to yet another acquisition.
Baidu, proprietor of China’s largest search engine, said this week that it has agreed to purchase a majority stake in Nuomi, a popular group-buying site. Terms of the deal: $160 million for a 59 percent stake.
For Baidu, which has been searching for ways to diversify its revenue model, snapping up a chunk of Nuomi seems a savvy move. With 3.8 million active paying users, Nuomi is among China’s top group-buying sites. And its users buy a lot of merchandise with their smartphones. Indeed, about 30 percent of Nuomi’s sales are made through mobile devices.
That’s important for Baidu, whose business is becoming increasingly more mobile-focused thanks to China’s fast-growing smartphone market. Nuomi offers geographically targeted daily deals, a business that should dovetail nicely with Baidu’s location-based services.
Baidu’s investment in Nuomi is the company’s second big deal this month. On August 14 it agreed to acquire the 91 Wireless app store from Netdragon Websoft for $1.85 billion.