- Revenue grew 6% year over year to 34.45 billion yuan ($4.72 billion) in the quarter ended September 30. This was slightly higher than analysts’ expectations.
- This comes after revenues in the previous quarter rose 15% from a year ago, with online and offline marketing revenues growing by double digits.
- “Baidu reported strong financial results in the third quarter, demonstrating resilience in a difficult economic climate,” Robin Li, Baidu CEO and co-founder of Baidu, said in a statement.
Men interact with a Baidu AI robot near the company’s logo at its headquarters in Beijing, China, April 23, 2021.
Florence Lou | Reuters
BEIJING — Chinese technology giant Baidu on Tuesday reported third-quarter revenue that beat expectations, though growth was slower than during the previous three months.
The company’s US-listed shares were up nearly 2% in pre-market trading at 5:00 a.m. ET. The stock is down about 3% year to date.
Revenue grew 6% year-on-year to 34.45 billion yuan ($4.72 billion) in the quarter ended September 30. That was slightly higher than analysts’ expectations of 34.33 billion yuan, according to Refinitiv.
The search engine provider’s online marketing revenue was up 5% over last year, while its non-online marketing revenue was up 6% over the same period.
This comes after revenues in the previous quarter rose 15% from a year ago, with online and offline marketing revenues growing by double digits.
“Baidu reported strong financial results in the third quarter, demonstrating resilience in a difficult economic climate,” Robin Li, Baidu CEO and co-founder of Baidu, said in a statement.
Adjusted earnings per American depositary share were 20.40 yuan in the third quarter, down from 22.55 yuan in the previous three months, but up from 16.87 yuan in the same period last year.
Baidu reported net income of 6.68 billion yuan for the quarter ended September 30, up from 5.21 billion yuan in the previous quarter.
The company said higher marketing spending contributed to an 11% year-on-year increase in selling, general and administrative expenses of 5.8 billion yuan.
The company said R&D expenses rose 6% to 6.1 billion year-on-year, partly due to increased server fees to support Ernie bot research. This represents a rebound from 1% growth in the second quarter compared to last year.
Ernie bot is Baidu’s version of the AI-powered Chatbot ChatGPT. Baidu only started charging for Ernie bot in November.
“Baidu Core maintained stable margins in the quarter,” Rong Luo, Baidu’s chief financial officer, said in a statement. “Our continued investments in AI have fueled technological and product innovations. Moving forward, while we will continue to prioritize investments in AI, especially in generative AI and underlying models, we will do so with a continued focus on efficiency and strategic allocation of resources.”
Its Apollo Go robo-taxi business operated 821,000 trips in the third quarter, up from 714,000 trips in the second three months of the year, the company said.
In September, the Yizhuang district on the outskirts of Beijing officially allowed local robo-taxi operators to charge fares for fully self-driving taxis, with no drivers inside.
Baidu also announced that Sandy Xu, former CFO of JD.com, will join the company as an independent director of the board effective January 1, 2024.
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