Baidu to acquire Joyy’s livestreaming service in $3.6b deal

Chinese search engine Baidu announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Joyy’s domestic livestreaming business YY Live in a US$3.6 billion deal.

Baidu’s Silicon Valley AI Lab, where PaddlePaddle was born / Photo credit: Baidu.

The closing of the transaction is subject to conditions and is expected to take place in the first half of 2021.

Baidu’s acquisition of the video-based entertainment livestreaming unit will include the YY mobile app, the YY.com website, and PC YY, among others.

With the acquisition, YY Live will have access to Baidu’s traffic and mobile ecosystems while the latter will receive operational experience, know-how, and a creator network for video-based social media development, said Robin Li, co-founder and CEO at Baidu.

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In the past year, Baidu enabled the growth of its non-advertising revenues by increasing log-in users and adding social engagement to their platform. It also expanded its non-advertising offerings, which include membership, livestreaming, and online games, Li noted.

The Chinese tech giant also announced it has generated US$4.16 billion in revenue for Q3 2020, with its online market revenue from Baidu Core taking up US$2.72 billion. It also raked in US$2.02 billion in net income that’s attributable to Baidu during the period.

The development comes after Tencent acquired 30 billion class B shares of Joyy’s Twitch-like service Huya in an US$810 million deal in August and became Huya’s biggest shareholder. Later, Huya acquired its rival Douyu and was reported to create a new game-streaming giant valued at over US$11 billion.