CEO: Baidu not buying Yahoo

Chinese search giant Baidu will not be buying Yahoo as it wants to focus on online search and remain "neutral" in generating search results, says report.

At the IT Leadership Summit held Sunday in Shenzhen, China, Baidu CEO Robin Li said he had no plans to purchase Yahoo, reported Chinese newswire Xinhua.

"I don't think about killing off my rivals everyday," Li said. "And I don't think [Tencent CEO] Ma Huateng or [Alibaba CEO] Jack Ma are my biggest rivals. I'm thinking about how to make Baidu bigger and better."

He also explained that it would not be ideal for Baidu to buy another large company as it needed to remain neutral in the online search space and in generating results. This was why Baidu had been focused on search and not other activities, he added.

The scenario was put forth by panel moderator of the IT Leadership Summit, Wu Ying, who said Baidu--which market value was about double of Yahoo--was capable of buying the U.S. Internet pioneer. Latest figures from Nasdaq put Baidu's market value at about US$40 billion, while Yahoo was valued at US$19 billion.

Wu suggested that with the Yahoo purchase, Baidu would own 40 percent of Alibaba's share which would minimize threats from the e-commerce giant and put pressure on Tencent.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba had been trying to buy back parts of its share from Yahoo but negotiations had been futile. Sources said Taobao was the main barrier in the talks as the U.S. company believed its valuation had been too low.