Lekutian Breeds New Opportunities For Baidu

This morning, Rakuten and Baidu, Inc.

jointly announced that its B2B2C ecommerce platform, “Lekutian,” is going live on October 19, 2010. “While the revenues ramp on the JV and earnings contribution to Baidu will be minimal near-term, we view the launch of Lekutian as a positive development to Baidu's medium- to long-term penetration of the emerging ecommerce opportunity,” Citigroup writes. “Lekutian is forming a trustful shopping environment for booming Chinese online shoppers, with appropriate operations expertise and incomparable user traffics acquisition ability.” Citigroup said that there is also new opportunity for Baidu to attract keyword sales from Lekutian sellers, utilizing Baidu's enormous traffic to promote their product offering. Baidu closed Monday at $103.40.