Baidu's Robotaxi Fleet Now Matches Waymo's Pace As Weekly Ride Volumes Cross 250K

• Baidu's driverless ride-hailing business reports over 250,000 weekly rides.
• Baidu has been rapidly expanding Apollo Go lately, with launches planned in Dubai, Switzerland, the UK, and Germany.
• Analysts take notice of Apollo Go emerging as a sizable business for the Chinese tech giant.

Baidu Inc.'s autonomous ride-hailing business is expanding rapidly worldwide, with weekly rides surpassing 250,000 by the end of October, a company spokesperson told CNBC on Sunday. That's almost the exact weekly ride figure reported in April by Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car unit, for its U.S. operations.

Chinese and American companies are competing head-to-head for the pole position in driverless technology, which is now widely used for taxi services. 

Baidu's Apollo Go has emerged as one of the largest commercial fully driverless ride-hailing services in China and is now scaling globally. The company recently announced plans to launch in Dubai and Switzerland, as well as in the UK and Germany, through a partnership with Lyft.

In Mainland China, it mainly operates in Wuhan and parts of Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, and competes with Pony.ai and WeRide.

Apollo Go said it has received 17 million robotaxi ride orders to date, and that its cars have driven 240 million kilometers (149 million miles), with 140 million fully driverless rides, according to the report.

Introduction into a new market often follows significant testing and regulatory formalities, which typically take one to two years to complete. Still, analysts now note that Apollo Go could grow into a sizable business as Baidu diversifies beyond online Search.

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for BIDU shifted to 'extremely bullish' as of late Sunday, from 'bearish' the previous day. The message volume was 'normal,' even as community members posted about the Apollo Go news. Baidu's shares are down 44% year to date.

The company is set to hold its annual tech conference in Beijing on Nov. 13, and will report its quarterly results on Nov. 18.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

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