Google Inc said it has sold its stake in Chinese rival Baidu.com, the Associated Press reported today.

Google registered to sell all of the 749,625 shares of Beijing-based Baidu.com Inc it owns, according to a Tuesday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filer of such a document is permitted to sell the shares within 90 days after the registration.

Google bought about 2.6 percent of Baidu.com's outstanding Class A ordinary shares for about US$5 million before the Chinese search engine's initial public offering last year. The shares are valued at more than US$60 million, based on Baidu.com's current stock price.

Baidu.com, often called the "Chinese Google," went public last August. Its American depositary shares hit a high of US$151.31 on their first day of trading, up from the IPO price of US$27 each. The shares fell to a low of US$44.44 each on February 6.

Baidu's shares fell US$4.20, or 5 percent, to close at US$80.20 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume of about 3.4 million shares was well above the daily average of 2.2 million.

Google's shares fell US$2.18 to close at US$399.95 yesterday on the NYSE.

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