Baidu's quest to gain more traffic and become the portal for mobile phone users recently announced their partnership with 16WiFi and VisionChina Connected, two of the most powerful public wifi providers in China. 

The investment made is said to have a staggering amount of $16.1 million for 16WiFi and an $11.3 million addition to VisionChina subsequently. In a post made by ChinaTechNews, the public WiFi service is predicted to be available in several public places, including transportation mediums in Foshan, Nanjing, Shanghai and Beijing. Baidu's studies showed that the launch of these public WiFis will greatly help in gearing up their bid for larger traffic.

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Chief Marketing Officer Liu Hui of 16WiFi confirmed signing deals with the operators of public transportations, saying "The company has signed deals with public transportation operators to introduce the free wireless internet connection in 150,000 vehicles and will use the funds to build WiFi infrastructures across the country." Baidu has also pledged to provide the branding and distribution support needed for 16WiFi.

China's Internet Network Information Center released their 2014 data that shows the massive number of internet users, reaching 649 milliom with 557 million mobile phone users. iResearch, however, indicated that the combined users cover 75.6 percent of mobile and WiFi internet users, subsequently giving the idea of how wide Baidu's market target will be, once the project is final.

Baidu is not the only giant internet business in China that has invested in such business, e-commerce operator Alibaba and web portal Tencent also put their investment to Treebear and Wiwide, WiFi service provider in China that also covers a huge internet user community. Monetizing on mobile applications, Baidu plans on launching a mapping service to Qianhai Mobile.

TechInAsia reports that 16WiFi CEO Qiu Chaomin believes that, besides expanding and escalating to a bigger market, keeping the wifi service for free is as important as the service itself in order to keep their users and maintain their market scope. Baidu's interest in partnering with 16WiFi will enable the internet service provider to broaden their scope and reach more users through public transportation mediums.

TagsWiFi, 16Wifi, VisionChina, mobile users