Baidu Mobile Browser Gets Relaunched, Revamped, Aims to be China’s Number 1 [PICS]

Today at Baidu World, CEO and co-founder of Chinese search giant Baidu, Robin Li, announced a hugely revamped version of its mobile browser, available on Android, Windows Phone 7, and Symbian, both in Chinese and English. This announcement has also practically killed off the rumors that Baidu is considering an acquisition of UCweb, the company behind UC Browser, China’s most widely-used mobile browser at the moment. Clearly, Baidu is thinking that it can beat its rival without a costly acquisition.

But the last time we looked at mobile browsers and their share of web hits in China (to Baidu domains, in fact), UC Browser was the market leader with 30.3 percent share; rival Tencent had 19 percent. Embarrassingly for Baidu, its own earlier effort didn’t even register with a number, so it was clearly failing. That perhaps explains why Baidu is pretty much starting from scratch with this app.

Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) has a PC-based browser which was launched last year. The search giant also has a mobile cloud OS, based on Android. On top of all that, a browser is a good way of keeping people in your own ecosystem. Here are five unique things about Baidu’s relaunched mobile browser:

1. Look and Feel

Let’s start with its design. We got a chance to test the browser and I thought the user experience is pretty standard, just like most browsers. It has a grid of icons layout which allows users to bookmark their favorite pages or web apps on the browser homescreen (see the top image). But following this standard isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s pretty easy to tune into and learn how to use it.

2. T5 Technology = HTML5

Baidu browser prides itself on its own so-called T5 technology. ‘T’ stands for Taikonaut and ‘5’ stands for HTML5. In laymen’s terms, Baidu claims that T5 provides a faster and better looking browsing experience through its HTML5 optimization conforming to web standards. The company also claims it has the highest HTML5 test score (482) among other mobile browsers (via html5test.com):

(Note: From Html5test.com: “The HTML5 test score is an indication of how well your browser supports the upcoming HTML5 standard and related specifications.” Maximum score is 500).