Chinese search engine giant Baidu posted a 9% increase in its quarterly revenue on the back of strong growth in its AI cloud business.
Photo credit: Baidu
The company’s revenue rose to 33.1 billion yuan (US$5.2 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2021, up from US$4.8 billion in Q4 2020. While non-advertising revenue surged 63% to US$1.1 billion, which was mainly pushed by AI cloud, advertising revenue grew by 1% to US$3 billion.
Baidu is focusing on supplying tech to companies operating in the fields of self-driving vehicles, cloud, and chips. This comes as China’s crackdown on private firms in sectors such as education and property has battered Baidu’s core search-advertising division.
Revenue from Baidu’s core businesses, which include its search engine and AI cloud services, climbed 12% to US$4.1 billion for the quarter.
See also: Baidu’s financial health in 5 charts
“We brought our AI capabilities to China’s traditional industries and public service sector, to aid in the improvement of their efficiency and operational expansion,” the company said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Baidu’s video-streaming service, iQiyi, reported a marginal decrease in its revenue for the quarter, dropping by 1% to US$1.2 billion in Q4 2021. The platform’s subscribers hit the 99 million mark in December 2021.
Currency converted from yuan to US dollar: US$1 = 6.31 yuan.
Editing by Lorenzo Kyle Subido
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