Baidu Launches Car Info App Youjia, Taking on ByteDance’s Dongchedi

Search giant Baidu is tapping into the automobile consumption market, launching a car information app Youjia. With abundant car model information and auto news, the app is designed to help consumers in their decision making process when purchasing a car.

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According to WeChat official account “Tech Planet,” Youjia is divided into three sections – the home page which features “recommendations” and “car world,” the car selection function that focuses on car databases and sales, and the user’s “personal center.”

“Recommendations” are mainly made up of articles from Baijiahao, Baidu’s content aggregation platform, while “car world” features short videos from Haokan, a Baidu-backed short video app. In the car selection tap, users can search for car specs and dealer information, as well as related articles and videos. Notably, all the sales channels are from car comparison website Bitauto, which previously received $50 million investment from Baidu.

As early as last November, during the 17th Guangzhou auto show, Baidu launched a “Youjia” Baijiahao account, which covers frontline auto info. Now as market demand rises, Youjia took the opportunity to launch as an independent app to further penetrate the market.

Some view the launch of Youjia as Baidu’s latest effort to take on ByteDance, who is behind the car information and review app Dongchedi. Rumors have circulated that ByteDance should take over Baidu’s “B” in China’s tech leadership acronym “BAT”, as it beat Baidu and Tencent in digital advertising revenue and became China’s second-largest digital ad player last year.