Yes, it's true, Google finally got rid of all of their Baidu holdings, from just over 2.6% to absolutely nothing now. Google had owned almost 750,000 shares, just prior to disposing them earlier this week. In fact, they made a pretty hefty profit after selling their shares for more than US$60M, having acquired them for just US$5M during Baidu's IPO in 2005.
This move has clearly demonstrated that Google has no interest in acquiring further stakes in Baidu as part of their strategic direction to get into the massive Chinese market. Without a doubt though, it will not be a stroll-in-the-park for Google as it continues to lose market share to Baidu. Google continues to experience troubles dealing with issues from government control, to cultural and censorship problems.
Baidu continues to be the market leader with about 60% share, followed by Google at about 30% and the remaining helding mostly by Alibaba.com and Yahoo!.