Baidu revenues soar in Q2 with AI boost

Chinese internet search giant Baidu Inc reported its total revenues reached 26.0 billion yuan ($3.93 billion), an increase of 32 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of this year, while mobile revenue represented 77 percent of total net revenues, compared to 72 percent for the same period last year.

"We had another strong quarter in Q2 with search exhibiting robust revenue growth driven by artificial intelligence-powered monetization capabilities and Baidu feed continuing strong traffic and monetization momentum," said Robin Li, chairman and CEO of Baidu.

Li said on Baidu's open autonomous driving platform Apollo, they worked with King Long Motor and Neolix Technology to launch two fully autonomous L4 vehicles, emphasizing "these strong results are a testament of our ability to focus and execute on our strategy to solidify Baidu's mobile foundation and lead in AI."

Net income attributable to Baidu was 6.4 billion yuan, up 45 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, and its online marketing revenues were 21.1 billion yuan, representing a 25 percent increase year-on-year.

Herman Yu, chief financial officer of Baidu, said: "We continue to increase our investments in AI-powered businesses with strong synergies and divest from non-core businesses. This has resulted in an acceleration of our revenue growth and allowed us to redeploy capital raised from non-core business divestures to create long-term shareholder value and increase return on capital."

Last month, the company announced it has begun volume production of Apolong, China's first fully autonomous mini bus, in partnership with Chinese bus manufacturer King Long, and intends to ship such buses to Japan early next year.

Baidu and China Mobile have formed a strategic partnership to cooperate in AI, big data and 5G, and agreed to jointly explore opportunities in autonomous driving and internet of things at home.

For the third quarter of 2018, Baidu expects revenues to be between 27.37 billion yuan and 28.77 billion yuan, representing a 23 percent to 30 percent increase year-on-year.