SHANGHAI, June 21, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ --
China Real Estate Information Corporation ("CRIC" or the "Company")
(NASDAQ: CRIC), a leading provider of real estate information,
consulting and online services in China, and Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), the
leading Chinese language Internet search provider, announced today
that they have entered into a new strategic partnership
agreement.
Under the agreement, CRIC will become Baidu's premier strategic
online real estate partner and will have the exclusive right to
sell Baidu's real estate brandlink product, which is one form of
keyword advertising, during the next three years. In addition, the
two companies will continue their previous cooperation in several
other Baidu products, including Baidu Website Promotion, Baidu
Encyclopedia, Baidu Knows and Baidu Map, to further expand the
online search-based advertising market for the real estate
industry.
The new agreement expands the agreements previously entered in
2010. In February of 2010, the two companies signed cooperation
agreements for a series of Baidu web products. Further, in May of
2010, CRIC obtained the exclusive right to build and operate
Baidu's online real estate channels for the following four years.
Starting in August of 2010, CRIC successfully built and launched
the Baidu Leju new home, secondary home and home renting channels.
CRIC will continue launching additional online real estate related
channels on www.baidu.com, including the Baidu Leju home furnishing
channel, under the 2010 agreements.
Xin Zhou, CRIC's co-chairman and
chief executive officer, said, "Partnering with Baidu in online
real estate search and advertising is an important strategic
decision. Through this new agreement with Baidu, CRIC enhances the
strength of its search-based online products. Combined with CRIC's
already strong portal-based online products, this uniquely
positions CRIC to provide quick, comprehensive real estate
information and a multi-dimensional web experience for hundreds of
millions of internet users in China, while further strengthening our leading
position in the online real estate services business."
Mr. Zhou added, "Over the past year, Baidu Leju has become an
important information source for tens of millions of internet users
who are interested in the Chinese real estate market. Baidu Leju's
current model has been well recognized and received by more than a
thousand real estate developers. Through the expanded agreement
with Baidu, CRIC is now able to provide more comprehensive sets of
online products to real estate clients and further enhance users'
web search experience for real estate information."
Haoyu Shen, Baidu's senior vice
president of business operations, commented, "Search has become an
increasingly important information source for China's home buyers. The cooperation with CRIC
over the past year has confirmed our view about the market
potential for online search-related products through vertical real
estate channels. As a result, we will continue working closely to
expand this market."
Mr. Shen continued, "We hope that the strategic
cooperation with CRIC will help accelerate Baidu's real estate
vertical channel development, and provide better user and client
experiences in online real estate information search."
The expanded strategic agreement will take effect in
August 2011. Under the terms of the
agreement, CRIC will pay Baidu a total of RMB180 million over the three-year term
(RMB40 million in the first year,
RMB60 million in the second year and
RMB80 million in the third year), in
addition to RMB200 million over four
years under the 2010 agreements. These agreements will give CRIC
the exclusive right to sell Baidu's real estate brandlink product
to all real estate developers in China during the contract period. CRIC will
continue building and operating the Baidu real estate and home
furnishing related channels. CRIC will retain all associated
revenues from these agreements.
About CRIC
China Real Estate Information Corporation ("CRIC") (NASDAQ:
CRIC) is a leading provider of real estate information, consulting
and online services with a presence in over 140 cities across
China. CRIC, a subsidiary of
E-House (China) Holdings Limited
(NYSE: EJ), merged with the online real estate business of SINA
Corporation (NASDAQ: SINA) upon the completion of CRIC's initial
public offering and listing of its ADSs on the NASDAQ Global Select
Market in October 2009. Leveraging
its proprietary, advanced and comprehensive real estate information
database and analysis system, CRIC provides a broad range of real
estate-related services to all participants in the real estate
value chain, including developers, suppliers, agents, brokers,
service providers and individual consumers. CRIC's services include
subscription-based information services, customized consulting
services and online services through several real estate websites
that provide region-specific real estate information and access to
online communities. For more information about CRIC, please visit
http://www.cric.com.
Safe Harbor Statement
This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These
statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S.
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These
forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as
"will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans,"
"believes," "estimates," "confident" and similar statements. Among
other things, quotations from CRIC's and Baidu's management in this
announcement, as well as CRIC's and Baidu's strategic and
operational plans, contain forward-looking statements. Statements
that are not historical facts, including statements about CRIC's or
Baidu's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and
uncertainties. Neither CRIC nor Baidu undertakes any obligation to
update any forward-looking statement, except as required under
applicable law. All information provided in this press release and
in the attachments is as of the date of the press release, and
neither CRIC nor Baidu undertakes any duty to update such
information, except as required under applicable law.
For Investor and Media Inquiries:
In China
Penny Pan
Manager, Investor Relations
China Real Estate Information Corporation
Phone: +86 (21) 6086-8111
E-mail: ir@cric.com
Derek Mitchell
Ogilvy Financial, Beijing
Phone: +86 (10) 8520-6284
E-mail: cric@ogilvy.com
In the U.S.
Jessica Barist Cohen
Ogilvy Financial, New York
Phone: +1 (646) 460-9989
E-mail: cric@ogilvy.com
SOURCE China Real Estate Information Corporation