BEIJING, Aug. 10 (InfoChina) – The stock value of China’s leading search engine Baidu.com Inc. (Nasdaq: BIDU) is likely to become China’s first Internet company with market value hitting 10 billion US dollars, said Li Yanhong, board chairman of Baidu, on August 9.

Li’s claim was echoed by industry insider Zhao Chunming with Us-based SIG. Zhao noted in a recent research report that, in its analysis scope, Baidu is very likely to be the first Chinese Internet company with its share capitalization reaching 10 billion dollars.

At present, Baidu’s market value is around 7 billion dollars.

Baidu posted a net profit of 141.9 million yuan (18.6 million US dollars) for Q2’07, compared to 58.5 million yuan (7.3 million dollars) in Q2’06. The sale revenues reached 401.3 million yuan (52.7 million dollars), up 109 percent year on year.

Yang Weiqing, president of market researcher iResearch noted that the rapid growth of Baidu is linked with the development and ripeness of search industry. Statistics show that search service rank the fist among all Internet-based services, outpacing other services, such as e-mail, news portal, and online games.

Thanks to Baidu’s recognition among a big user base, 160,000 partners joined Baidu alliance over the past year, including more than 50 percent of commercial websites.

In addition to bidding and ranking systems provided to small- and medium-sized enterprises, Baidu also launched advertising precision services to key advertisers, such as BMW, Bens, Haier, Nike, Samsung, which broadens the source of Baidu’s revenue. (Edited by Chen Dongyi, )