Baidu announced that its Apollo Go robotaxi service has completed over 11 million rides since launching in 2019.

In Q1 2025, the service recorded 1.4 million rides, a 75% increase compared to the same period last year.

The autonomous ride-hailing service operates in 15 cities across mainland China with more than 1,000 driverless vehicles and is being tested in Hong Kong, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi.

CEO Robin Li shared plans for expansion and improvements during an earnings call.

Baidu reported revenue of 32 billion yuan (US$4.5 billion) in Q1 2025, a 3% increase from the previous year, beating analyst expectations of 31 billion yuan (US$3.8 billion).

Net profit rose 42% to 7.7 billion yuan (US$943.58 million), surpassing projections of a decline to 4 billion yuan (US$490.17 million).

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🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Baidu’s decade-long autonomous driving investment is finally paying off

Baidu has been methodically building its autonomous vehicle capabilities for nearly a decade, with its current success reflecting the importance of long-term strategic planning in frontier technologies.

The company began exploring autonomous driving technology as early as 2013, significantly diversifying beyond its core search business during a pivotal transitional period1.

By 2015, Baidu was already testing self-driving cars in Beijing’s complex traffic conditions through a partnership with BMW, demonstrating early commitment to solving difficult autonomous driving challenges2.

Their 2017 launch of the Apollo open-source platform marked a strategic inflection point, which by 2018 had attracted over 100 partners including major automotive manufacturers like BMW and FAW Group3.

This decade-long investment timeline contrasts sharply with many tech initiatives that expect immediate returns, highlighting how breakthrough technologies often require sustained, patient capital deployment before reaching commercial viability.

The journey from early road tests in 2015 to today’s 11 million completed robotaxi rides demonstrates the extended development cycles necessary for transformative transportation technologies to move from laboratory to commercial deployment.

2️⃣ Open-source strategy created a powerful network effect in autonomous driving

Baidu’s decision to make its Apollo autonomous driving platform open-source in 2017 mirrors Google’s Android strategy, creating a network effect that accelerated development and adoption.

Within just 14 months of Apollo’s launch, Baidu had secured partnerships with over 100 OEMs, suppliers, and chip manufacturers, allowing the company to focus on software while partners handled hardware components3.

The platform provided crucial tools, APIs, and code that significantly lowered R&D costs for manufacturers entering the autonomous vehicle space, creating mutual benefits across the ecosystem3.

Baidu strategically complemented this with Apollo Scape, an open-source dataset for training self-driving algorithms that was 10 times larger than existing datasets, helping address the critical need for extensive driver data3.

This collaborative approach stands in contrast to more closed development models pursued by competitors like Waymo, which may have limited their ability to scale as quickly across diverse markets and vehicle types4.

By 2019, the Apollo platform had expanded to include 156 partners across 300 vehicle models, demonstrating how open-source strategies can create cycles of adoption and improvement in complex technological domains5.

Recent Baidu developments

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