Chinese Internet giant Baidu said it is canceling its planned multibillion-dollar purchase of live streaming platform YY Live, partly blaming its inability to get government approval.
Baidu, the country’s top search engine company, agreed in 2020 to buy JOYY Inc’s Chinese live video business YY Live for $3.6 billion.
Baidu founder Robin Li said at the time that the deal would “launch Baidu into a leading platform for live streaming and diversify our source of revenue.”
However, Baidu said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing on Monday that it would end the purchase agreement.
It explained that “the closing of the proposed acquisition is subject to certain conditions, including the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals from governmental authorities.”
By December 31, 2023, he said, those conditions had not been met.
Eurostar cancels trains due to flooded tunnels in UK
The deal was originally expected to be completed by 2021.
Live streaming is a multi-million dollar business in China, bringing huge profits to e-commerce giants and popular influencers.
Baidu has faced increased competition in recent years from domestic rivals including Tencent — which operates messaging platform WeChat — and ByteDance, which owns short video app TikTok and its mainland Chinese counterpart Douyin.
The company has sought to diversify into cloud computing, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence (AI) and other areas — with mixed results.
Baidu shares fell in March after investors were unimpressed by the company’s ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence software, “Ernie Bot.”
The company in November reported modest annual revenue growth of 6.0% for the third quarter of 2023.
Source: AFP