Baidu's CEO Discusses Q1 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) Q1 2012 Earnings Call April 24, 2012 8:00 PM ET
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In March, we hosted our first-ever Developers Conference to promote our open platform and raise awareness among developers of Baidu’s large and effective traffic distribution platform, reliable cloud computing service, and strong user behavior analysis and monetization capabilities. And I'm pleased to say that turnout was much larger than we expected.
At the conference we showcased three of our most exciting cloud-based initiatives. This includes the Baidu application engine, BAE, which enables developers to create and develop new apps for our open platform at lower cost than was previously possible. We also introduced our Mobile TouchPad, MTP, a cloud-based environment for developers to [tap into] the performance of these apps across dozens of operating systems and handsets. Both of these will significantly lower the barriers to entry for more -- for small-sized developers who don’t have a lot of capital or manpower.
And we rolled out an exciting new storage initiative we’re calling Personal Cloud Service, PCS. As I said, mobile internet usage needs to be backed up by good cloud support. Under the PCS umbrella, we will gradually roll out many useful cloud-based products and services. As a first step, in March, we launched Baidu WangPan or Baidu Net Disk, currently in beta testing. WangPan will allow users to store, manage and share vast amount of data for free across all terminal devices and virtually with no storage limitation. We look forward to building out WangPan’s functionality and capability, and we expect to become the industry leader on this front as well.
As I’ve mentioned before, although cloud computing is still at an early stage in China, it will become an integral part of the internet ecosystem and therefore represents a vital element in Baidu’s growth strategy.
Now, turning to our work on the customer front. We have made it a priority this year to better leverage the enormous opportunity with the SME market in China. Our sales and marketing team pushed hard into the second-tier markets, implemented innovative sales methods and optimized employee incentive scheme that ties compensation more closely with sales. These efforts have resulted in significant expansion of our SME customer base against a seasonally slow quarter. This is a good start and we want to continue pushing hard to educate smaller companies about the power of search engine marketing.
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