Creating a Baidu account with overseas phone number | China Tips

(Works as of April 2021)

Baidu is China's equivalent of Google. I wanted to download some files to 百度网盘 (similar to Google drive) and the application prompted me to login. While overseas numbers can be entered at the login page, only +86 China numbers were allowed for new accounts.

To circumvent this limitation, I downloaded the application 小度音箱 (an app for smart devices linked to Baidu). One thing to note is that this application is not available on Google Play Store. You will have to download it from other sources. I registered for a new account there and received a SMS OTP successfully. With this new account, I can now login to other Baidu services.