By Kosaku Narioka
Baidu reported its second-quarter results on Tuesday. Here’s what you need to know.
NET PROFIT: Baidu said net profit rose 43% from a year earlier to 5.21 billion yuan ($719.3 million) for the quarter ended June. That essentially matched the estimate of CNY5.24 billion taken from a poll of analysts by FactSet.
REVENUE: Second-quarter revenue climbed 15% from a year earlier to CNY34.06 billion. That also virtually met the estimate of CNY33.91 billion taken in the FactSet poll.
WHAT WE WATCHED:
–ONLINE MARKETING: Revenue from its online-marketing services grew 15% from a year earlier to CNY21.08 billion as the number of monthly active users for its flagship Baidu app rose 8% to 677 million in June.
–ROBOTAXI: Baidu’s Apollo Go autonomous ride-hailing service provided about 714,000 rides in the second quarter, more than doubling the number of rides from a year earlier. The business has been granted permission to provide fully driverless ride-hailing services to the public in cities like Beijing, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Chongqing.
–R&D: Research-and-development expenses edged 1.4% higher from a year earlier to CNY6.38 billion. Server depreciation and cloud-related expenses increased, while personnel-related expenses fell.
Write to Kosaku Narioka at [email protected]
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