Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) stock is up nearly 50% year to date. And that’s after the selloff it ran into in late October when it released solid earnings and revenue but didn’t live up to expectations on its guidance.

Part of the punishment was because US tech giants Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) all came in with huge earning wins.

But even after its drop, BIDU has still outperformed AMZN and GOOGL this year. It’s almost two-thirds more than GOOGL. And ironically, it’s often called the Chinese Google, since its business model is very similar to GOOGL.

BIDU is the second-largest internet search provider in in the world, and commands a 75% market share in China. And given the massive population of China, it doesn’t have to grow much beyond its borders to increase its size.

That’s a distinct advantage because once it has the Chinese government’s blessing, it can operate without having to deal with other countries’ regulators and governments saying what it can and can’t do.

You see how big US tech firms have to contend with European rules or Canadian rules, which are different than the US and then require these firms to slow operations while they duke it out in court or negotiate settlements.

BIDU doesn’t have these problems, which means in the long run its growth is much easier to achieve. What’s more, since GOOGL walked out of China years ago, that space has been filled by BIDU and similar companies. Moving into that space now would be like watching MSFT’s Bing try to overtake Google.

Also bear in mind that U.S. firms will always get the nod on Wall Street when you compare them to similar companies in China. Part of that reasoning is that Chinese firms don’t have the transparency the U.S. firms have and sometimes Chinese firms will build holding companies out of their Chinese operations to meet U.S. exchange standards. That further obfuscates what the actual shares represent.

That is less the case with BIDU than it is for say its counterpart, the “Amazon of China,” Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA). But all the same, for good or bad, big Chinese tech firms tend to be looked at somewhat more skeptically than similar U.S. firms.

And in cases like this, we can use that to our advantage. According to Penn Financial Group, earnings for BIDU in 2017 should increase around 25%, and for the two years beyond that, they should grow around 30% annually.

Remember BIDU stock has an $85 billion market cap. It’s not a small-cap play. It is growing at an incredible pace and has few obstacles for expanding its empire. This is a real growth story with real legs.

Louis Navellier is a renowned growth investor. He is the editor of five investing newsletters: Blue Chip Growth, Emerging Growth, Ultimate Growth, Family Trust and Platinum Growth. His most popular service, Blue Chip Growth, has a track record of beating the market 3:1 over the last 14 years. He uses a combination of quantitative and fundamental analysis to identify market-beating stocks. Mr. Navellier has made his proven formula accessible to investors via his free, online stock rating tool, PortfolioGrader.com. Louis Navellier may hold some of the aforementioned securities in one or more of his newsletters.