Airbiquity Inc., the global leader in connected vehicle services, and Baidu, the leading Chinese internet services provider, announced a partnership to provide connected car internet services to the Chinese automotive market beginning in first quarter 2014.
With this partnership, Airbiquity will integrate Baidu’s popular Map, Send-to-Vehicle, and Music Service capabilities into its Choreo™ private cloud connected vehicle services platform and Driver Experience offering supporting connected cars and drivers in China. This partnership reflects the increasing importance of the Chinese automotive market, Baidu’s dominant position in Chinese internet services, and the regionalization of Airbiquity’s expanding smartphone application and content portfolio available to leading Chinese and international automakers using the Choreo cloud platform.
Airbiquity’s Choreo cloud platform and Driver Experience offering connects cars to the cloud while fully integrating the most popular smartphone apps, cloud content and services into vehicle displays, controls and voice recognition systems. This cloud based delivery model and sophisticated integration approach provides drivers with a personalized connected car experience that is a true extension of their digital lifestyle. Leading automakers, tier 1 suppliers and wireless carriers use Airbiquity’s Choreo platform to power and manage their connected car programs while offering their customers in-car access to the latest technology, content and conveniences while mitigating driver distraction. Airbiquity is committed to continued partnerships and technology innovation with content providers like Baidu to make their brands and services available to connected car drivers and enabling the most superlative user experience in the automotive industry today.
“Baidu is by far the largest Chinese language search engine and one of the largest content providers in China,” said Leon Hong, Chief Operating Officer of Airbiquity. “We’re pleased to be working with such a significant and influential partner to provide rich, highly localized connected car features, content and services to Chinese connected car drivers. This announcement, in addition to our current partnership with China Unicom, demonstrates Airbiquity’s increasing commitment to the Chinese automotive market.”
Baidu understands the value of leveraging Airbiquity’s Choreo cloud platform and Driver Experience product offering to reach and serve the rapidly growing automotive market and connected car drivers in China. By working with Airbiquity, Baidu will deliver enhanced and customized local language search capability, traffic and map services, send-to-car navigation allowing drivers to forward map guidance directly to their car navigation system using smartphones and PCs; and streaming music that’s fully personalized in the car replicating the user experience on smartphones, PCs, and tablets.
"Baidu’s Location Based Services Department is developing a life platform for the automotive market with advanced location-based technology and rich Chinese data sets. Airbiquity's Choreo platform enables us to easily present our innovative, local language services to automotive OEMs for inclusion in their connected car programs," said Baidu’s Head of Open Map Platform. "We see this as the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership between our two companies that will create significant innovation and value in the Chinese automotive market.”