Baidu (BIDU) Beats Q1 Earnings And Revenue Estimates

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) just released its financial results for the first quarter of 2017, posting earnings of $0.66 earnings per share and revenues of $2.3 billion. Currently, Baidu is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) and is up 0.64% to $187.86 per share in trading shortly after its earnings report was released.

Beat earnings estimates. The company posted earnings of 66 cents per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 63 cents earnings per share. This number excludes a penny from non-recurring items.

Beat revenue estimates. The company saw revenue figures of $2.4 billion (RMB 16.9 billion), topping our consensus estimate of $2.3 billion.

Baidu’s first-quarter revenue increased 6.8% year-over-year, with mobile revenue representing 70% of its total sales. Though total revenues grew from a year ago, the Chinese search giant’s net income saw a 10.6% drop to $258.1 million. The company’s online marketing revenues also dipped 1.3%, compared to the same period last year.

For the second-quarter of 2017, Baidu expects to generate around $3 billion in sales. Jennifer Li, Baidu’s CFO, is stepping down from her role as the company’s CFO and forming an investment firm, Baidu Capital, and will serve as its CEO.

"As we focused on our core business and AI-enabled new business initiatives including our AI-cloud, financial services, DuerOS, and autonomous driving, all of which hold tremendous long-term potential," said Qi Lu, Baidu's Vice Chairman, Group President, and Chief Operating Officer. "In the quarters ahead, we will intensify our efforts in applying AI to improve existing products and to accelerate the development of AI-enabled new business initiatives."

Here’s a graph that looks at Baidu’s latest performance:

Baidu, Inc., formerly Baidu.com, Inc. is a Chinese-language Internet search provider and is based in Beijing, the People's Republic of China.The company offers a Chinese language search platform and conducts its operations principally through Baidu Online Network Technology Co., Ltd. , a network of third-party Web sites and software applications. Further, the company offers Japanese search services, including Web search, image search, video search, and blog search capabilities. It also offers online marketing services to its customers directly and through other distribution network.

Check back later for our full analysis on Baidu’s earnings report!

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