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Tag: Baidu Wallet

  • Baidu Wallet launches Southeast Asia foray

    Baidu Wallet launches Southeast Asia foray

    China’s Baidu Wallet has launched its mobile payment service in Thailand, on the eve of the traditional Thai new-year celebration Songkran.

    Part of the Baidu search-engine group, the digital payment service is now connected to more than 400 merchants in four Thai cities – Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya and Phuket. It covers restaurants, shopping malls and spas.

    Baidu Wallet is also set to launch in South Korea and Japan, with plans to also expand into Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

    Baidu Wallet’s smartphone app means Chinese travellers can avoid the bother of exchanging currency. They need only scan the QR codes of partnered merchants and enter the amount of Thai baht they need. The app converts the figure to yuan based on real-time exchange rates.

    China has the highest adoption rate in the world for technology-enabled payment systems, according to a new survey by market data company Nielsen. With information from 13,000 respondents across 26 countries, the survey shows that 86 per cent of Chinese respondents paid for online purchases over a six-month period, while the global average rate was half that at 43 per cent.

    A report by consultancy iResearch shows that China’s mobile payment transactions reached $373.2 billion in the third quarter of last year, a 64 per cent increase year-on-year.

    China has been the biggest source of international tourists since 2012, says the Tourism Authority of Thailand. There were 7.9 million Chinese tourists last year – 27 per cent of total international arrivals.

    Chinese travellers spent 6400 baht (US$180) a day each on average, with most tourists spending 5690 baht.

    A report from Forrester Research says the rapid growth of smartphones is driving an eCommerce boom across Southeast Asia, the world’s third-largest digital marketplace after China and India. This boom is being paralleled by strong payment growth via mobile. Companies are boosting their investments in online and mobile platforms such as Carousell in Singapore and Tarad in Thailand, where 35 per cent of purchases are made via a mobile device.

    Alipay, from Alibaba, has introduced an online shopping service Thailand duty-free shop King Power, and the WeChat app payment option launched in Thailand at the beginning of this year.

  • KFC tests its robot orders

    KFC tests its robot orders

    Customers at a new digital KFC concept store in Shanghai give their orders to a voice-activated robot.

    Dumi the robot is sophisticated enough to handle changes and substitutions in orders.

    Dumi is the result of 10 years of research and development into artificial intelligence by Chinese web services company Baidu, which says the robot will appear soon in other real-world environments.

    Inside Shanghai’s National Exhibition and Convention Center, the KFC store has been designed to be completely digitalised. Called “Original+”, as a reference to the brand’s traditional recipe, it features wireless charging stations where customers can simultaneously stream music. They can also pay for their meals via mobile payment services including Alipay and Baidu Wallet.

    Introduced at last year’s Baidu World Congress 2015, Dumi integrates the company’s AI technologies such as voice recognition and intelligent search. The robot will use KFC’s customer behaviour data to gain a better understanding of users’ needs and improve business efficiency.

    As well as ordering and paying through Dumi, the customers can see how KFC dishes are made through the robot’s holographic imaging technology.

    Baidu VP Wang Haifeng says the robot may become a big part of the company’s application of more AI technology into fields that range from internet financing to driverless cars.

    There is only one problem with Dumi, admits Baidu: it has trouble distinguishing between certain dialects and accents. But then again, so might a human employee.

    Jason Yu, GM of the consumer research firm Kantar Worldpanel China, describes the Shanghai concept store as “a very interesting experiment”.

    “It is expected to generate increased customer experience, and raise efficiency for restaurants. And in turn it is expected to attract more young and middle class customers.”

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  • Shopping drives Baidu growth

    Shopping drives Baidu growth

    Chinese search engine Baidu is experiencing rapid growth as more and more Chinese shop online.

    Releasing its September quarter sales results, the US Nasdaq-listed business says Online to Offline is driving a massive growth in mobile users, gross merchandise value and mobile map usage.

    “With mobile accounting for nearly two-thirds of Baidu’s search traffic and China squarely in a mobile age, Baidu is pioneering and redefining the mobile experience for users in China,” said Robin Li, chairman and CEO of Baidu.

    “We further extended the reach of our platform by deeply integrating and connecting search and maps with transaction services,” he said.

    Jennifer Li, Baidu’s CFO, said the momentum in transaction services gives the company confidence to continue investing.

    Mobile search monthly active users (MAUs) were 643 million for the month of September 2015, an increase of 26 per cent year on year. Mobile maps MAUs were 326 million for the month of September 2015, an increase of 34 per cent.

    And Gross merchandise value (GMV) for transaction services totalled RMB60.2 billion (US$9.5 billion) for the third quarter of 2015, an increase of 119 per cent year on year.

    The company’s payment service, Baidu Wallet reported a 520 per cent increase in activated accounts to reach 45 million at the end of September.

    Total revenues in the third quarter of 2015 were RMB 18.383 billion (US$2.892 billion), a 36 per cent increase from the corresponding period in 2014. Mobile revenue represented 54 per cent of total revenues for the third quarter of 2015, compared to 37 per cent for the corresponding period in 2014.

    Operating profit in the third quarter of 2015 was RMB2.512 billion ($395.2 million), a 35.9 per cent decrease from the corresponding period in 2014.

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