Baidu to pay $306m for majority stake in Qunar.com

China’s top search engine Baidu (BIDU.NASDAQ) announced Friday it will pay US$306 million for a majority stake in online travel platform Qunar.com Information Technology, the Wall Street Journal reported. The investment underscores Baidu’s efforts to widen its product offerings, with acquisitions in online video and e-commerce ventures, in order to compete with other expanding Chinese internet companies. Tencent (0700.HK) and Alibaba Group, for example, have been working on their own search technology to compete with Baidu. Qunar offers Chinese travelers a search engine for airline, train, hotel and tour packages, in addition to group-buying promotions and discussion forums on its website. The company’s CEO Zhuang Chenchao said Baidu’s investment will go towards new service development, including mobile applications and hotel search services. Qunar will continue to operate as an independent company, but the two firms will collaborate in some areas of online travel search, Baidu said in a statement.