Baidu releases indexes on Chinese economy

Hong Kong

BAIDU Inc has released its first indexes tracking the state of China's economy and consumers, indicating a rise in unemployment and predicting a drop in sales for Apple Inc.

Based on mapping query data from China's biggest search engine, the indicators employ the positions of users, the 25 billion location requests they seek, and the Wi-Fi hotspots they log into across the country. Baidu handles 70-80 per cent of all online searches in China, and its mapping service boasts 700 million users.