ZHEJIANG, CHINA – MARCH 16, 2023: View of the logo of ERNIE Bot, an artificial intelligence chatbot service developed by Chinese search engine Baidu, on March 16, 2023.
Long Wei | Future Publishing | Getty Images
China’s Baidu beat analysts’ forecasts on Thursday for first-quarter revenue, driven by a recovery in advertising sales and rising demand for its artificial intelligence cloud products.
The company, China’s largest search engine provider, reported revenue of 31.51 billion yuan ($4.37 billion) for the three months ended March 31, compared with analysts’ average forecast of 31.21 billion yuan, according to LSEG data.
The company’s U.S.-listed shares rose about 3% in premarket trading.
Baidu has recently stepped up efforts to increase sales of artificial intelligence-related products and services.
Although the company still generates the majority of its revenue from advertising sales, the strategic move is part of a rebranding effort.
Co-founder and CEO Robin Li said in the earnings report: “Baidu’s core online marketing revenue remained stable, while the end-to-end optimization of our AI technology stack continued to drive our AI cloud revenue growth during the quarter.”
Baidu Core’s revenue, which includes search-based advertising sales, cloud products and autonomous driving plans, increased 4% to 23.8 billion yuan.
Meanwhile, revenue from its streaming service iQiyi fell 5% to 7.9 billion yuan.
LSEG data showed that Baidu announced an adjusted net profit of 7 billion yuan for the quarter, exceeding analysts’ average forecast of 5.57 billion yuan.
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