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Chinese search leader Baidu (BIDU) aims to sell predictive data to economists, as well as to large companies, hedge funds and other investors, and it’s zeroed in on Apple (AAPL) to demonstrate its capabilities.

Apple’s fiscal Q3 sales growth in greater China could slow to 20% sequentially from 26% in the March quarter, says Baidu, according to a Bloomberg report. Baidu reports earnings next Monday, and Apple reports on Tuesday.

That Apple’s slowing growth in China — its biggest market– is hardly a secret, though. Apple in May slipped to fifth place in China’s smartphone market.

Baidu on Thursday said it plans to use location data generated by some 700 million users of its mapping service to provide strategic insights on China’s economy, as well as to predict consumer trends.

Baidu joins e-commerce giant Alibaba Group (BABA) in utilizing proprietary databases for providing private sources of information to supplement sometimes questionable, government-sourced data. Alphabet (GOOGL), parent of Google, pulled out of China in 2010 amid government censorship.

Baidu’s Big Data lab in Beijing plans to track searches on its mapping service, and along with computing models, in order to create data useful for different industries.

Baidu zeroed in on Apple stores in mainland China to provide an example of its data-gathering prowess. Baidu compared the number of people searching its maps for specific Apple stores in mainland China with the tech giant’s revenue across greater China, which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Baidu shares rose 0.5% to 161.40 on the stock market today.

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