Baidu Says Buying Better Than Building for Mobile Profit

Baidu Inc., owner of China’s largest Internet search engine, said it prefers to expand by acquisitions as the company moves to revive advertising sales growth and take advantage of a consumer shift to smartphones.

“We prefer buy to build, because that will save us time,” Chief Executive Officer Robin Li said today on a conference call to discuss first-quarter earnings. He didn’t name any targets or elaborate on the scale of prospective purchases.