News

Baidu sells mobile gaming business for $173 million

Getting out of the games space?

Date Type Companies involved Size
January 13th, 2017 other Baidu Inc. $173m
Baidu sells mobile gaming business for $173 million

Chinese online giant Baidu has disclosed in a filing that it agreed to sell its mobile gaming business for $173 million in January, as spotted by Seeking Alpha.

Baidu Mobile Game was a subsidiary of Baidu that focused on publishing licensed mobile games through its own platform.

But on January 13th 2017, Baidu signed a deal with two unnamed companies to offload the division in an all-cash deal.

Cut-price

"The business of Baidu Mobile Game will be disposed in 2017 as we entered into an equity transfer agreement with a third-party purchaser in January 2017," reads the statement from Baidu.

The Baidu Mobile Game team was formerly known as 91 Wireless, acquired in August 2013 for $1.85 billion, so this $173 million sale represents something of a cut-price deal.

Whether this represents an exit from the mobile games space for Baidu, or simply clearing the decks for something new, remains to be seen.

 


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Features Editor

Matt is really bad at playing games, but hopefully a little better at writing about them. He's Features Editor for PocketGamer.biz, and has also written for lesser publications such as IGN, VICE, and Paste Magazine.