Baidu Inc is buying a minority stake in Uber Technologies Inc, giving the car-booking company a boost as it expands in China, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Uber will receive cash and non-cash assets, including Baidu's online resources as owner of China's biggest Internet search engine, the person said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private. The investment may be worth as much as $600 million, China National Radio reported earlier.
Baidu's investment gives the search company a slice of the market in China that has been dominated by start-ups backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd, the nation's biggest Internet companies. San Francisco-based Uber this month completed a round of funding that valued the car-booking application at $40 billion. "Uber needs a local player like Baidu that really understands the Chinese market," said Li Yujie, an analyst at RHB Research Institute Sdn in Hong Kong.
