After Buying 40% of Yambook Maker, Is a Baidu E-Reader Coming?

Reports say that Baidu has bought up 40 percent of digital books and e-reader maker Fan Shu in a deal believed to be worth 47.6 million RMB (US$ 7.4 million).

The buy-up, when it’s confirmed, raises the intriguing prospect of Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, branding Fan Shu’s Yambook e-reader (pictured above) as its own, and tying it to Baidu’s Wenku books portal. It’d be a move reminiscent of Amazon with its Kindle.

Wenku is one of Baidu’s newest sections; it sells digital books for download or reading online. Back in March of this year, Wenku was the centre of a controversy – now resolved – when some prominent Chinese writers accused Baidu of pirating and profiting from their literature.

Fan Shu is a joint-venture subsidiary of the Beijing Founder Technology company, which makes budget laptops and other hardware. The Baidu deal would value Fan Shu at 120 million RMB. Its Yambooks sell for 1800 RMB for the cheapest wifi-only model.

The last time we saw Baidu splashing the cash, it was investing a much bigger sum of money ($306 million) in Qunar.com, China’s biggest travel-booking and search website.

[Source: Sina tech news – article in Chinese]