SINGAPORE (June 5): Baidu, China’s leading search engine, has launched an indoor location services powered by IndoorAtlas to the 270 million monthly active users of Baidu Maps.

"IndoorAtlas's accuracy to the last meter level and scalability sets it apart and complements Baidu's existing mobile Location Based Services and maps offering," said Liu Jun, Vice President of Baidu Maps, in a statement released by IndoorAtlas.

"IndoorAtlas's intellectual property portfolio and global geographical coverage will be instrumental in helping us at Baidu build out our LBS platform indoors in China and abroad. And it will allow us to implement new use cases at scale that is not possible with other technologies," said Liu.

Baidu had released indoor maps with a large number of participating malls in 2011 and is integrating the IndoorAtlas solution to increase the accuracy of its maps and make them available at a much larger scale.

Baidu invested US$10 million ($13.5 million) in IndoorAtlas last year. It also signed an agreement with IndoorAtlas that gave it exclusive rights to use IndoorAtlas’s technology in China. The investment is aimed at ramping up its mobile strategy and increasing the number of mobile users.

IndoorAtlas uses the Earth's magnetic field to pinpoint locations inside buildings, enabling accurate indoor navigation, location-aware mobile search, location based advertising, and new online-to-offline commerce opportunities.

Baidu’s ADRs closed at US$175 yesterday.