Baidu beats quarterly revenue estimates on robust ad sales, AI
FILE PHOTO: People walk near a Baidu logo at the company headquarters in Beijing, China April 23, 2021. REUTERS/Florence Lo/File Photo
17 Nov 2021
China's Baidu Inc on Wednesday reported quarterly revenue above Wall Street estimates, helped by stronger advertising sales and demand for its artificial intelligence and cloud products.
A recovering domestic economy encouraged higher marketing spending, helping Baidu's ad sales, even as it faces tough competition from e-commerce giant Alibaba and ByteDance. Baidu's foray into artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and autonomous driving has also helped its growth.
In a bid to expand its portfolio, the company last year introduced robotaxi vehicles and entered into a partnership with Chinese auto manufacturer Geely to develop electric vehicles, a fast-evolving sector where many tech companies are looking to make a mark.
"Baidu Core delivered another solid quarter, powered by our AI cloud revenue growing 73per cent year-over-year," said Rong Luo, chief financial officer of Baidu.
The company's results come amid a wide-ranging regulatory crackdown by China on its technology sector that includes heavyweights like Tencent and Alibaba in a bid to keep a check on their monopolistic practices.
Baidu said total revenue was 31.92 billion yuan (US$5.00 billion) in the third quarter, slightly above analysts' average estimate of 31.71 billion yuan, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
(US$1 = 6.3811 Chinese yuan renminbi)
channelnewsasia.com
FWIW, Baidu is up 2.2% in premarket trading. |
