Home ›› 23 Feb 2023 ›› Stock
China’s Baidu Inc (9888.HK) beat revenue estimates for the fourth quarter on Wednesday, bolstered by strength in its advertising, cloud and artificial intelligence businesses, sending its US-listed shares up 7% in premarket trading.
The search engine giant, which generates most of its revenue from online ads, is seeing advertisers return after China lifted its zero-Covid policies last year in a boost to the country’s economic prospects.
The company also announced a new share repurchase program of up to $5 billion. Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 came in at 33.08 billion yuan ($4.80 billion), inching past analysts’ estimates of 32.01 billion yuan, according to Refinitiv data.
Revenue from Baidu Core, which includes search-based ad sales, cloud offerings and its autonomous driving initiatives, fell 1% to 25.7 billion yuan.
While non-online marketing revenue rose 11% to 7.6 billion yuan, driven by AI and cloud businesses, strict pandemic-related controls in China caused the company’s online marketing revenue to drop 6% to 18.1 billion yuan in the reported quarter.
“2022 was a challenging year ... in 2023, we believe we have a clear path to reaccelerate our revenue growth, and we are now well positioned to make use of the opportunities that China’s economic recovery offers us,” Baidu’s Chief Executive Officer Robin Li said.
