Baidu sees its total revenue hit nearly $5b in the second quarter

Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc reported on Wednesday that its total revenue reached 32.7 billion yuan ($4.57 billion) in the second quarter of this year, with artificial intelligence-powered cloud business delivering robust revenue growth. 

Revenue from Baidu's core businesses came up to 26.3 billion yuan during the April-June period, while the net profits from core businesses stood at 7.4 billion yuan, up 35 percent year-on-year. 

Mainly propelled by the AI initiative, the revenue of AI new businesses, including Baidu AI Cloud, exceeded 10 billion yuan for the first time, an increase of 34 year-on-year growth.

"We remain focused on AI initiatives that offer the greatest long-term value creation potential, where our technology and innovation can make the most meaningful and lasting impact," said Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Baidu, in a statement.

Apollo Go, Baidu's autonomous ride-hailing service, accelerated global expansion while actively exploring new business models. It provided over 2.2 million fully driverless rides in the second quarter, representing a 148 percent year-over-year increase. As of August, the cumulative rides provided to the public by Apollo Go surpassed 14 million.

The company inked strategic partnership with global mobility platform Lyft Inc earlier this month to deploy Apollo Go's fully autonomous vehicles across key European markets, starting with Germany and the United Kingdom, and scaling to thousands of vehicles across Europe.