Ad sales helped Baidu, China’s search engine, beat the expectations set on the Wall Street. Thus, in the third quarter of the year, the company reported that its revenues went above estimates, thanks to strong ad sales. Also, the growth came as a result of high demand for their artificial intelligence and cloud products.
Ad sales and the recovering economy
According to the analysts, this is a result of the recovering domestic economy. Thus, the improved situation encouraged Chinese companies to spend more on marketing. So, Baidu, which is the most important search engine in China, took advantage of the situation.
Under these circumstances, Baidu was no exception. Still, they had to face tough competition from e-commerce giants Alibaba and ByteDance. But their foray into artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and autonomous driving helped them grow beyond expectations.
Moreover, the company also expects to reach or even exceed estimates for the current quarter. Its streaming affiliate, iQIYI, also reached 104 million subscribers in September. As a result, it reported a rise of 6% in revenue. Also, as Rong Luo, chief financial officer, mentioned, the main trigger was the AI cloud revenue.
Expanding the portfolio brought success
The company has been focusing on expanding its portfolio. In order to do so, it has been investing in the fast-evolving sector of electric vehicles by partnering with Geely. Moreover, it also introduced robotaxi vehicles into its brand.
The results come as Tencent and Alibaba, two of China’s biggest technology companies, have also been affected by the regulatory crackdown.
Baidu announced total revenue of $5 billion for the third quarter. Slightly higher than analysts’ estimates of $4.5 billion, this has been attributed to growth in its cloud and artificial intelligence segment.
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