Qihoo’s numbers are up in Q3, hits ambitious search engine goal ahead of schedule

A lot of people are watching Qihoo 360 (NYSE:QIHU) as it eats into Baidu’s search engine market in China. Over the weekend, Qihoo issued its third quarter earnings report, revealing positive figures for its search and other core web businesses.

Qihoo CEO Zhou Hongyi noted of the firm’s So.com search engine:

During the quarter, we continued to gain notable search traffic market share and, based on a third party report, we have already achieved our year-end search traffic share goal several months ahead of schedule. Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in product development and technology innovation, setting the stage for Qihoo 360 to capture a significant portion of the search market in both PC and mobile Internet and eventually reshape this vast industry in China. While our search monetization is still in its early stages, we have made significant progress. We believe that search and mobile monetization will drive substantial long-term growth for our business.

That’s a reference to statistics that show Qihoo’s search engine hit 20 percent market share in China at the end of October. It was Qihoo’s goal to do that by the end of 2013. This is Qihoo’s first full year running its search engine, which only emerged onto the scene in the summer of 2012.

Here are Qihoo’s main Q3 figures:

• Revenues of $187.9 million, a 124 percent increase from $84 million in the third quarter of 2012.

• Online advertising revenues were $120.7 million, up 107 percent year-on-year.

• Net income reached $44.5 million, rising from $12.9 million in Q3 2012.

• Total monthly active users of Qihoo 360’s PC-based products – anti-virus, web browsers, etc. – reached a record 465 million.

• 360 Mobile Safe, Qihoo’s Android-only anti-virus suite, is now up to 408 million users.

For full-year 2013, Qihoo expects revenues to be between $655 million and $657 million, which will be about double the previous year’s number.

Still struggling with mobile