China‘s search engine big Baidu Inc surpassed quarterly income estimates on Thursday as a resurgence of COVID-19 in China and accompanying restrictions boosted demand for its cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) merchandise.
The information drove Baidu’s U.S.-listed shares greater than 5% up in pre-market buying and selling whilst the corporate cautioned that the second quarter could be more difficult.
Income for the three months to March 31 rose 1% to twenty-eight.41 billion yuan ($4.22 billion), the slowest progress in six quarters, however topped an analysts’ common estimate of 27.82 billion, IBES knowledge from Refinitiv confirmed.
It posted a web lack of 885 million yuan, or 2.87 yuan per American Depository Share (ADS), amid an financial downturn and pandemic resurgence in China.
A yr earlier it had posted a revenue of 25.65 billion yuan, or 73.76 yuan per ADS.
“Since mid-March, our enterprise has been negatively impacted by the current COVID-19 resurgence in China,” Robin Li, Baidu’s founder and chief govt, mentioned in a press release, including that challenges associated to the virus will proceed to stress its operations within the close to time period.
Income for Baidu Core, which incorporates on-line advert gross sales and non-ad gross sales from its AI-powered merchandise together with AI cloud, rose 4% to twenty.48 billion yuan.
Its on-line advert income dropped 4% year-on-year to fifteen.7 billion yuan.
The second quarter will probably be more difficult for the corporate, in contrast with the primary quarter, Baidu’s Chief Monetary Officer Luo Rong mentioned throughout a convention name.
Gross sales from Baidu AI cloud, a part of the non-ad income and one among its fastest-growing sectors, jumped 45%, based on Luo.
Based as a search engine device, the corporate has expanded into cloud companies, autonomous driving and robotaxis in recent times as competitors rises for its core search platform and commercial enterprise.
Final month Baidu obtained permits to deploy robotaxis with out people within the driving seat on open Chinese language roads for the primary time.
Apollo Go, Baidu’s robotaxi service, presently accessible in 10 Chinese language cities, operated round 196,000 rides in the course of the quarter.
FbTwitterLinkedin
