Robin Li: Pioneer of China鈥檚 Information Superhighway

Listing waiting game

While many Chinese Internet companies are busy with trying to get listed on the NASDAQ or Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market to catch the revival of Internet stocks, Baidu remains cool to the idea, although his company was said to be contacting Morgan Stanley for an IPO on the NASDAQ.

"We are still waiting for the right time," Li said.

The president added that a good time "benchmark" for Baidu's listing will be when Google launches its IPO. He will then be able to gauge how investors will react and use that as a reference for his company.

It has been reported that Google has selected Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as its lead underwriters and plans to register its IPO to the US Securities Exchange Commission this month. Google's stocks are expected to float in April and raise US$4 billion.

"We are still a start-up company and we should not make a rash IPO until investors fully agree with us on the future path of our company," Li said.

He said Baidu broke even in the second quarter, but he declined to disclose the detailed figures.

Baidu gets about 80 per cent of its revenues from paid listings of more than 10,000 small and medium-sized Chinese enterprises, 10 per cent from licensing search software to enterprises, and the rest from licensing technologies to Internet portals in China.

Li and Eric Xu are the biggest stakeholders in the company.

Editor:Zhang  Source:CCTV.com