Baidu’s revenues climb 2% amid cost-cutting drive
Chinese internet giant Baidu reported on Tuesday that it generated 32.5 billion yuan ($4.6 billion) in revenues in the third quarter, representing a year-onyear increase of 2 percent.
Its earnings report showed Baidu posted a net loss of 146 million yuan for the three months to September as it reined in costs and trimmed back far deeper losses from 12 months earlier.
Chinese technology majors have struggled in recent months amid an economic slowdown, Covid-19 curbs that have hammered consumer sentiment, and tighter regulatory scrutiny.
Earnings reports from internet titans, including Alibaba and JD.com, have presented a mixed picture in recent weeks.
“Baidu Core delivered a solid set of financial and operational results in the third quarter, despite the continued challenges posed by the Covid-19 resurgence,” Chief Executive Officer Robin Li said.
The core business “resumed positive growth, driven by a gradual recovery of our online marketing business and the steady growth of our AI (artificial intelligence) Cloud revenue,” he added, hailing “significant progress in intelligent driving.”
“Looking ahead, we expect our mobile ecosystem to continue generating strong cash flow and fund our investment in AI Cloud and intelligent driving, which will help ... drive long-term business growth,” Li said.
Beijing-based Baidu reported a third-quarter loss of 16.6 billion yuan last year, despite revenues rising 63 percent year on year to 31.9 billion yuan that time.
The company, which operates China’s biggest online search engine, has diversified in recent years into AI, cloud computing and autonomousdriving technologies as advertising revenue has remained sluggish.
Beijing has wrought a sweeping crackdown on the tech industry since late 2020 as part of an effort to curb monopolistic practices and promote competition between internet platforms.
But the strategy of record fines, torched initial public offerings and probes into major firms have hit revenues and placed further strain on the ailing economy.
Electronic commerce titan Alibaba announced last week a third-quarter loss of 20.6 billion yuan, which it partly blamed on a “decrease in market prices of our equity investments in publicly traded companies.”
JD.com reported a sales increase of 11 percent year on year, although neither platform released full revenue figures for the “Singles’ Day” shopping bonanza this month, considered a barometer of Chinese consumer sentiment.
Despite recently announcing the loosening of coronavirus policies, some Chinese authorities are persisting with a zero-Covid strategy of snap lockdowns that have disrupted business operations in some areas.