China's Baidu Q2 Earnings: AI Cloud Expansion, Driverless Tech Breakthroughs, And Baidu Search Overhaul

Baidu, Inc (NASDAQ: BIDU) reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $4.67 billion, flat year-on-year, marginally missing the analyst consensus estimate of $4.70 billion. 

Baidu’s adjusted earnings per ADS of $2.89 beat the analyst consensus estimate of $2.58.

Segments: Baidu’s Core revenue increased by 1% year over year to $3.67 billion; Online marketing revenue declined by 2% year over year to $2.64 billion. Non-online marketing revenue grew 10% year over year to $1.03 billion, driven by the AI Cloud business. 

Revenue from IQIYI, Inc (NASDAQ: IQ) decreased 5% year over year to $1.00 billion, missing the analyst consensus estimate of $1.04 billion. 

Baidu’s SG&A expenses were $784 million, down by 9% Y/Y. R&D expenses declined 8% Y/Y to $810 million.  

Baidu’s adjusted EBITDA margin remained firm at 27%, and its Core adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 100 bps to 32%.

As of June 30, 2024, Baidu had $22.29 billion in cash and equivalents and generated $862 million in free cash flow. 

“AI Cloud continued to accelerate in the second quarter, offsetting the ongoing macro headwinds for online marketing revenue and resulting in modestly positive topline growth for Baidu Core. Operationally, we fast-tracked the renovation of Baidu search, which we believe will drive long-term success despite the short-term impact on monetization. We also achieved new breakthroughs with Apollo Go, which now offers 100% fully driverless ride-hailing services in practically the entire Wuhan municipality, and has started scalable testing of the latest RT6 vehicles,” said Robin Li, Co-founder and CEO of Baidu.

Price Action: BIDU stock traded lower by 0.80% at $89.02 in the premarket session at the last check on Thursday.

Photo by Sundry Photography via Shutterstock