2012 Fastest-Growing rank:
3
Previous rank:
4
CEO:
Jason Rhode
Twelve years after Robin Li and Eric Xu founded it, Baidu remains unequivocally the largest search engine portal in China with a market share of nearly 80% by some estimates. The company's services have also expanded beyond standard search to include revenue-generating online marketing tools like its "pay for placement" (P4P) platform, which let companies create their own text-based-ads that appear in search listings.
Baidu's growth continued to show in the company's stellar results for 2011: earnings rose 77% to $326 million on sales of $2.3 billion. Last September, Baidu introduced a new personalized homepage that automatically tailors itself to user searches: providing a link to cinema show times or the local weather forecast if the user frequently looks for that information.
NEXT: Apple