Docomo’s Doubles Down on China, Completes Investment in Baidu Joint Venture

Japan’s NTT Docomo (NYSE:DCM) today announced that it has completed its $22.5 million investment in its joint venture with China’s Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU).

Docomo will have 20 percent ownership of the joint venture, Baidu Yi Xin, which is a mobile content platform provider. The agreement between the two companies was first announced last year.

According to Chinese media reports in April, Baidu Yi Xin boasted over 5 million original books downloaded (sourced from original publishing companies and third party sites dealing with publishers) and traffic of about 100 million page views per day.

Today’s announcement notes that in August Baidu Yi Xin will provide content from Japan, first collaborating with Japanese social gaming giant DeNA. Docomo says that it is “actively expanding Chinese market access for Japanese service and content providers”

The Asahi Shimbun also cited new Docomo president Kaoru Kato (pictured above) today as saying that the company will begin selling smartphone games in the fall or winter, with new content being offered in its d-market service.