Qunar.com is a Chinese travel search website that is partially owned by Baidu Inc. Qunar is planning to have an IPO in the U.S. as they believe that consumer demand for their services will continuously increase. Qunar.com’s revenue is expected to double this year. Qunar broke even in 2010 and sales more than doubled to “a few hundred million” yuan stated Qunar.com CEO CC Zhuang.

Baidu, also known as the company that is often times coined as “the Google of China,” has launched a beta version of their first web browser. The browser looks suspiciously just like the Google Chrome browser. The Baidu web browser has a single web address toolbar at the top and the browser home page gives access to an app market just like the Chrome Web Store. Opened applications appear in a new tab. Baidu’s new web browser can be downloaded to Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 users only so far. [CNET]

The Chinese government is penalizing Baidu.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) for allowing users to download music illegally. The government is penalizing 14 different websites for illegal music downloads, which include Baidu. The Xinhua news agency in China reported this matter today. These websites were repeatedly warned about the illegal music downloads.

Baidu is a company that is known as the “Google of China.” Baidu will soon be building a mobile operating system that has purely a focus on search. Baidu is aiming to have their mobile devices launch immediately after being powered on and seeing a web search box right away according to Baidu co-founder Robin Li. [CNBC]

Anjuke is a Chinese real estate website that has raised $50 million in funding led by Baidu.com with participation from Matrix Partners. Anjuke is a website where buyers, homeowners, and real estate agents can buy and sell properties online. Anjuke has about 800 employees across 20 offices and lists properties across 20 cities in China. Anjuke was founded in 2007 and is based in Shanghai. [TechCrunch]

Chinese search engine Baidu plans to hire software engineers from the U.S. starting next month. Baidu plans to hire 30 mid to senior level software engineers at a job fair on July 10th in Silicon Valley.

Chinese search engine Baidu.com has received a $50 million investment from Providence Equity Partners to start a video subsidiary. The video service will be just like Hulu. Baidu was planning to invest $10 million of their own money in the project too. Baidu will have a majority stake in the venture. Baidu’s video website will be monetized by ads and there will be licensed premium content. The video website will most likely be called Qiyi.com. [paidContent]

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU), also known as the Google of China has had a slow fourth quarter because of tainted milk controversy.  The last quarter was the company’s first sales decline since they were listed on the NASDAQ in 2005.  Baidu.com was accused of managing the searhc results on behalf of milk company Sanlu.  Sanlu’s milk allegedly contained melamine thus poisoning and hospitalizing thousands of children.

Baidu denied the accusations but decided to remove the paid search advertisements of medical and pharmaceutical customers that have not filed for government licenses.  The removal of these links reduced sales by 5%.

Baidu’s fourth quarter sales were about RMB902.1 million ($132.2 million), up 58% from the previous year in the same quarter.  Baidu’s third quarter sales were RMB919.1 million.  This quarter, Baidu expects their sales to be between RMB780 million and RMB800 million.  Net profit for the fourth quarter was about RMB288.7 million, up from 31.3%.