Chinese search giant Baidu, on last Thursday, reported its fourth quarter results, which came out beating market estimates.
Baidu’s fourth-quarter revenue and profits came above the market estimates as its core business of online marketing grew as well as revenue also surged in its streaming service iQiyi.
In a bid to increase revenue and equalize the effects of lowering ad sales from finance, real estate and other sectors, streaming business as well as other areas like artificial intelligence (AI) are now the center point of Baidu’s focus.
Company is also aiming to lessen its dependence on its core business of searching which led it to shift its focus or explore opportunities in other areas of business, and for the reason it heavily spent on contents for iQiyi as well as on promotions to attract new customers for lowering online ad business.
Robin Li, Baidu’s Chief Executive, during a conference call told analysts that the market has come to a saturation point but the company is entering a new phase for internet market in China. Still in the market there are available plenty of growth opportunities for core business of search engine and news feed, but the new growth in other areas will be coming through technological innovation.
In the fourth quarter ended on Dec 31, Baidu’s key online marketing business grew by 10 percent to 21.2 billion yuan ($3.15 billion).
With a doubled spending on content which is expected to be rise further in 2019, iQiyi’s revenue surged by 55 percent to 7 billion yuan in December quarter.
Revenue for the fourth quarter came in beating estimates of 26.3 billion yuan and rose by 22 percent to 27.2 billion yuan.
Net income attributable came at $2.08 billion which remained below from that of 4.16 billion yuan in same quarter last year.
Company also beat the analysts with its excluding items earnings of 13.18 yuan per American depositary share against their estimates of 11.83 yuan per American depositary share.