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China's Baidu beats quarterly revenue estimates on AI, cloud boost
CGTN
Baidu headquarters, Beijing, China /CFP

Baidu headquarters, Beijing, China /CFP

China's Baidu reported quarterly revenue that beat Wall Street estimates on Tuesday, as the company beefed up its cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) services to fend off competition in its core search business.

Known as the dominant search engine in China, Baidu has diversified its revenue sources by expanding its cloud-computing, artificial intelligence, autonomous driving and smart transport technology footprint as competition for advertising sales heats up from local internet giants Alibaba and ByteDance.

The Beijing-based company said total revenue rose 25 percent to 28.13 billion yuan ($4.38 billion) in the first quarter, boosted by non-advertising revenue growth of 70 percent. Analysts on average had expected revenue of 27.25 billion yuan, according to Institutional Brokers' Estimate System data from Refinitiv, a global financial market data provider.

Baidu also benefited from its video-streaming affiliate, iQIYI, that posted a 25-percent increase in advertising revenue during the quarter ended March 31.

Baidu's results also come amid regulatory clampdown on China's internet giants to keep a check on anti-monopolistic practices. The company also completed its secondary listing on the Hong Kong bourse late March this year.

U.S.-listed shares of the company rose 3.5 percent in premarket trading. The shares had been on tear in the first quarter amid a series of block trades tied to the meltdown of hedge fund Archegos Capital Management. 

Excluding items, Baidu earned 12.38 yuan per American Depository Share, above Wall Street estimates of 10.75 yuan.

Source(s): Reuters

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