When Microsoft’s Bing, the last foreign search engine left in China, was briefly inaccessible last month it caused a spasm of worry among Chinese internet users that their only remaining choice might be Baidu.
Baidu has been China’s dominant search engine for much of the past two decades, but is once again facing heavy criticism, after a claim went viral that it prioritised links to its own platforms above more relevant results.
When it releases its fourth-quarter earnings this week, analysts expect its operating margin, which fell from 21 per cent to 16 per cent between the second and third quarters, to have shrunk again as China’s advertising market slows.
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