Men interact with a Baidu AI robot near the company logo at its headquarters in Beijing, China April 23, 2021. REUTERS/Florence Lo/File Photo
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Aug 30 (Reuters) – Chinese search engine giant Baidu Inc (9888.HK) beat quarterly revenue estimates on Tuesday, buoyed by demand for its cloud and artificial intelligence-based offerings.
The company’s U.S.-listed shares rose 3.2% in premarket trading.
Even as Baidu’s core ad sales continue to be weak, customers are signing up for its cloud services – a key area of growth globally – as demand for internet applications increases.
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Total revenue was 29.65 billion yuan ($4.43 billion) in the second quarter, compared to an average analyst estimate of 29.30 billion yuan, according to Refinitiv data.
Baidu’s AI Cloud unit revenue grew 31% year-over-year in the quarter under review.
Compared to the figures for the previous year, turnover fell by 5%, its first quarterly decline in two years.
Baidu posted a net profit of 3.64 billion yuan, or 1.49 yuan per American Depository Share (ADS).
(1 Chinese Yuan = $0.1449)
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Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bangalore; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips
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