Chinese Search Engine Giant Baidu Surpasses Quarterly Revenue Estimates As COVID-19 Resurges In the Country

China’s leading search engine Baidu is doing quite well for itself as the company surpassed its own revenue estimates for the quarter, reports Reuters.

What was once seen by many as a search engine tool has now ventured into the world of cloud services. But that’s not all as we saw it take the leap forward into driving and robotaxis too. Now that’s what we call diversity at its best.

On Thursday, the company made a shocking announcement about its revenue and how it managed to go above and beyond estimates predicted by analysts in regard to this current quarter.

The news comes as COVID-19 resurges in the country with lockdowns and remote working in full swing. Therefore, as you can already imagine, these restrictions boosted the demand for both AI and cloud-related services.

This news further went on to boost the company’s shares in the US market by nearly 5%. And that’s despite the company sending out cautions that they’re expecting to see more challenges come forward for the second quarter.

The company’s revenue over the last three months went up by one percent to reach 28.41 billion. Yes, it’s the slowest growth that took place in the past six quarters but again, it topped the expectations of leading analysts who were roughly expecting estimates worth 27.82 billion.

Baidu put up results about a net loss of 885 million CNY due to the ongoing economic downturn in the country as the pandemic surged in China again.

Just one year back, we saw the same company exceed a profit of 25.65 billion.

Recently, the company’s spokesperson mentioned in a statement how they’ve been facing a number of hurdles come their way since the middle of March. And due to the uprising of the pandemic, things aren’t doing too well right now either. Moreover, he added how the challenges were many and they were bound to increase and pressure their upcoming operations too.

On the other hand, the company did speak about how the revenue for its Baidu Core division had increased, and that included online ad sales as well as non-ad sales via AI-powered goods and services like AI cloud. The figures for this had risen by nearly 4%.

As far as the company’s online revenue was concerned, they’ve seen a 4% drop to about 15.7 billion for now.

As the company’s CFO mentioned recently, Q2 will be a major obstacle and the company is well prepared for the outcome.

In other good news, the company’s revenue for its AI cloud services showed a massive jump of 45%, making it one of the firm’s fast-paced sectors.

What was once founded as a search engine tool is now expanding out into the world of cloud services and that says a lot about the company’s mighty growth and strive to expand. Remember, the competition in China’s market is intense and for anyone to take the lead and enhance its advertisement business or search platform is definitely a milestone.

Last month, the firm made headlines when it received the permit to run robotaxis without the inclusion of humans in driver seats. These were allowed on the roads, marking history for the first time ever.


Photo: N509FZ / Wiki

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