Baidu is China's leading search engine with over 70% market share. It has partnered with insurers like Allianz and CPIC to offer insurance products through subsidiaries like Du Xiaoman, which offers wealth management and mobile payment products. Baidu is also investing heavily in autonomous driving through its Apollo program, working with automakers to develop self-driving vehicles and services. It uses location data from its map services to cross-sell insurance policies.

2. Baidu
Founded in 2001, Baidu is China’s leading search engine and built
its user base through a superior ability to parse and rank Chinese
characters and emphasizing offline. This, combined with
government support means Baidu attracts over 70% of web
searches in China.
Overview
Key Insurer Partnerships
Baidu has partnered with Allianz / CPIC to launch Bai’An Online.
Baidu competes with several other
search engines in China including
Sogou, So.com, and Google.
Online Marketing
ThreatsOpportunities
ii) The second is an emphasis on speech recognition. From its
home assistant Xiaoyu to text based chatbots, Baidu sees speech
recognition as the future of property insurance distribution.
Wechat search volume and
inaccurate advertising campaigns
have weakened Baidu’s brand.
Baidu’s established market position
and leadership in fields such as A.I
to telematics
Strengths Weaknesses
A $1 billion joint fund with China Life to invest A.I particularly..
i) The first is a commitment to autonomous driving. Baidu’s
Apollo programme is developing the software necessary to enable
autonomous driving in China.
Baidu’s approach to digital insurance is two pronged:
Breakdown:
660 million monthly active users
of Baidu’s search engine and 14
apps with more than 100 million
daily active users each.
iQIYI video
streaming membership
$10.2 billion revenue, $1.8 billion profit

3. Digital Direct
O2O
Baidu has been trying to reposition itself away from a reliance on the
search-engine business towards technologies used in AI. Launched in in
2015, Du Xiaoman was established as a joint venture with Carlyle Group,
Agricultural Bank of China Ltd, and Taikang Life to offer insurance and
micro-loan services.
Du Xiaoman has integrated an insurance portal into its app and mobile site.
Originally launched as an alternative to Alibaba’s Alipay, Baidu Wallet
struggled to match Alipay’s user base and thus attract offline merchants.
Recently, Baidu Wallet has partnered with the Agricultural Bank of
China to provide mobile payments to consumers in tier two cities.
Du Xiaoman offers a range of wealth management products that rely on
intelligent recommendations of money market funds, investment products
viewed as being as safe as bank deposits but offering higher yields.
However, the captive audience that Alibaba and Tencent have amassed
through their respective ecommerce and social network has been difficult
for Baidu to replicate.
ii) Wealth Management Funds
i) Mobile Payments - Baidu Wallet
Du Xiaoman
Distribution Channels

4. Self-driving shuttle bus
developed with King Long
Automotive and designed
to be used in enclosed
zones such as airports
and industrial parks.
Other use cases include
semi-autonomous
wheelchairs for retirees,
agri-machinery, and of
course driverless cars.
Positioned as the ‘Android’ of autonomous driving,
Apollo provides hardware and software to more than
29 automotive manufacturers including Daimler and
Ford, Chery, Jaguar Land Rover and Great Wall
Motors, Hyundai. Apollo, in conjunction with its
OEM partners, will provide autonomous vehicles for
a wide range of use cases and with 30 million new
vehicles sold in China annually, in addition to 500
deaths daily (94% due to human error), the
opportunity for Baidu Apollo extends far beyond
commerce.
Provides car
manufacturers with both
the hardware and software
needed to produce
autonomous vehicles in
China. 26 car
manufacturers including
Ford, Daimler and
Mercedes have embraced
Apollo 3.0
i) Apollo Pilot ii) Apollo 3.0 Programme iii) Cloud Services
Cloud services offered
through the Apollo
programme will include
navigation, the Duer OS
Voice assistant, in car
entertainment, and
communication features.
These services represent
additional revenue stream
for Baidu.
Apollo Programme

5. Baidu.caifu
● Launched in 2013 as Baidu’s financial services aggregator.
● Focused on auto and travel insurance lines.
● Withdrawn in 2015 due to poor conversion rates and opportunity to optimize
display advertising from insurers.

6. Baidu map has already integrated with China’s most popular ride sharing platform
autonomous driving programme, Apollo, and the Baidu map gives it access to
more location data, a resource from which Baidu can pioneer the next era of
transportation and location based insurance policies that range.
ii) Connected mobility services:
i) Location based cross selling:
Baidu Map
Baidu Map
As the most popular mapping service in China, Baidu Map boasts 300 million
active users. This gives Baidu access to location data in over 700 Chinese cities
which can be used to inform the pricing and distribution of travel, auto and
personal accident insurance.
Although still in its nascency, Baidu has integrated with China’s leading ride-
sharing operator, Didi Chuaxing, further expanding its reach into usage based
insurance. A recent Baidu’s recent partnership with CPIC will enable location based
cross selling of travel, personal accident and commercial fleet insurance.

7. Apollo Programme
Autonomous Vehicle Apolong: Shuttle bus
Agri-machineryStreet Cleaner
Partner: BMW
Status: Pilot tested
ten thousand
kilometers.
Will require regulatory
approval before mass
production.
Partner: King Long
Status: First 100 have been
manufactured and
operational
Limitation: Currently
confined to non-pedestrian
zones.
Partner: Xutowise.ai
Has been deployed in
Shanghai 2am-4am.
Limitation: Narrow use
case.
Partner: BYD
Testing underway in Anhui
province.
Limitation: Upgrading agri-
machinery is still a state
funded effort.

8. Baidu
Insurer partnerships Baidu Search investments
Du Xiaoman - 42%
AllianzBai An - 20%
Wukongbao
Velodyne
Wholly Owned Joint Ventures Baidu Caifu Baidu Map
Heilongjiang Lianbao
Insurance Agency -
100%
CPIC
Guohua Life
Taikang Online
AIG
MetLife
Aegon-CNOOC
Duer OS
Kitt.ai
Apollo

9. Investments….
Name Logo Vertical Business Model & Customer Acq URl
Kitt.ai
Fraud Detection Founded by ex-Baidu R&D engineers, the
4Paradigm team were early pioneers of Baidu’s
AI driven keyword anticipation feature which is
now being turned to identify fraudulent claims at
PICC, China’s largest property insurer.
Kitt.ai develops a conversational language
plug in called ChatFlow that allows developers
to add natural language processing
functionality into apps.
kitt.ai
4Paradigm 4paradigm.com
A.I
Wukongbao Data Analytics wukongbao.comWukongbao provides apps and platforms with
an API through which tailored insurance
policies can be cross sold to the user base of
such apps.