Baidu plans to launch Baidu Yi platform

Baidu, China’s answer to Google, has confirmed plans to launch their very own mobile smartphone platform known as Baidu Yi. Given how China has blocked Google with their firewalls, Baidu (and Alibaba) are popular internet companies from China and now it looks like Baidu plans to take Google on in the smartphone platform market as well.

Baidu Yi will be based off Android (rather ironic) but instead of featuring Google apps and services, they will instead be replaced by Baidu’s own apps. No word on when the platform is expected to roll out, but given how Baidu seems to be more well-known in China, we’re not sure if the company has plans to start distributing their platform outside of the China market.