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A source said Baidu Waimai had made contact with Meituan Dianping on the merger, but could not agree on issues including the price and stock rights

Baidu’s food delivery subsidiary, Baidu Waimai, and Baidu’s fully owned group-buying company, Nuomi, denied the rumours of a merger with Meituan Dianping, the “Chinese Groupon”, Tencent Tech reported.

According to Tencent Tech, a source close to the matter said Baidu Waimai had made contact with Meituan Dianping on the merger, but they currently could not agree on issues including the price and stock rights.

Both Baidu Waimai and Nuomi have already denied a similar rumour in August that they would sell themselves to Meituan Dianping.

Also Read: Baidu will build self-driving cars with Nvidia, and test them in Silicon Valley

Baidu Waimai made an announcement in August to clarify rumours and prove that Baidu Waimai was in good financial condition. Baidu’s Q2 results indicated that the gross merchandise volume of its e-commerce businesses, including Nuomi, Baidu Waimai and Baidu Wallet, reached RMB18 billion (US$2.7 billion), a 166 per cent YoY increase.

In the Baidu World Conference 2016 last week, the general manager of Nuomi, Zeng Liang, emphasised the importance of Nuomi in Baidu’s online-to-offline (O2O) ecosystem. Baidu’s mobile search application recommends merchants and services to users, Baidu’s mapping service application helps the merchants locate their customers, and finally Nuomi completes the transaction.

Zeng said that the O2O market in China was in a sustainable and fast growth and that Nuomi would continue working in artificial intelligence (AI) and big data.

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Ibo Fung is a writer at AllChinaTech. He is passionate about bringing the Chinese tech and science industry to the rest of the world by writing about the sector. His interest in tech started after a stint working at Foxconn. He’s crazy about smart devices and any advanced technology that is adapted for end-user adoption … and basketball. E-mail: ibo[at]allchinatech.com

The original article “Baidu’s group-buying arm Nuomi dismisses merger rumor with China’s Groupon, Meituan Dianping” first appeared on AllChinaTech.

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