Chinese search engine giant Baidu announced it has generated US$4.6 billion in revenue for the three months ended on December 31. This represents a 5% increase in revenue in the fourth quarter from the same period last year.
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Baidu Core – which includes the company’s products like the Baidu app, its search engine, along with its AI businesses Apollo, DuerOS, and Baidu Cloud – contributed over US$3.5 billion to the company’s total revenue in Q4 2020. Online marketing revenue from the unit was US$2.9 billion, while non-marketing revenue reached US$$645 million, increasing 52% year over year.
The company’s earnings were driven by its push into new AI businesses, including cloud services and autonomous car technology.
The Chinese tech giant developed its Baidu AI call center solution, which is powered by its AI platform Baidu Brain, to handle large-scale customer calls with conversational AI.
Meanwhile, the company also received a driverless testing permit in California and China and plans to form an electric vehicle company.
According to the firm, it has entered into a strategic partnership with automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, owner of the Volvo and Geely Auto brands, to contribute its expertise in automobile design and manufacturing.
However, Baidu’s Netflix-like platform iQiyi saw its subscribers decreased by 3.1 million in Q4 as compared the third quarter in 2020. The video-streaming platform yielded US$1.1 billion in Q4, decreasing by 1% year over year.
“As we enter 2021, Baidu is well-positioned as a leading AI company with a strong internet foundation to seize the huge market opportunities in cloud services, autonomous driving, smart transportation, and other AI opportunities. We also hope to capitalize on our huge internet reach with more non-marketing services,” said Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Baidu.
The firm also expected to rake in US$4 billion to US$4.4 billion in revenue in Q1 2021, which does not include potential contributions from its acquisition of social network YY Live, the domestic livestreaming business of Joyy.
The acquisition, which was agreed upon last November, has been “substantially completed, with certain customary matters remaining to be completed in the near future,” said a Baidu spokesperson.
Editing by Jaclyn Tiu
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