Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Baidu profit grows 36 percent in Q4

The company is focusing on expanding into China's mobile Internet market

Baidu's net profit in the fourth quarter grew 36 percent year-over-year, but the company admits it has to still take advantage of China's growing mobile Internet market.

In the fourth quarter ending Dec. 31, Baidu's net profit reached 2.8 billion yuan (US$445 million), the company reported on Tuesday. Revenue also met company projections and at 6.3 billion yuan increased by 41.6 percent from the same period last year.

Baidu has long dominated China's PC-based search market, and brings in most of its revenues from online advertising customers. In the fourth quarter, the search giant had about 406,000 active online advertisers, a 30.5 percent increase year-over-year.

But the company faces the challenge of bringing its services to China's mobile Internet space. The nation is the world's largest smartphone market, and 420 million people in the country are going online through mobile devices, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.

"This is a huge change, and we are feeling energized by the opportunities before us," said Baidu's CEO Robin Li in a Tuesday earnings call. Baidu's mobile search usage will overtake PC-based search sooner rather than later, he added.

The company is adding new features to its mobile search engine "almost on a weekly, if not on a daily basis," Li said. Baidu also wants to turn its popular mobile map app into a location-based platform that can recommend services to users. In addition, the company has released a Siri-like voice assistant for the Chinese Mandarin language.

Baidu's mobile search business, however, has yet to contribute to meaningful revenues, and only a small number of its online advertising customers have optimized their sites for smartphone and tablet devices. "There is a lot of work ahead of us on this front," Li said. "As we have said before, it will take a couple of years to close this gap."

For this year's first quarter, the company projects its revenue will grow between 38 percent to 42.6 percent year-over-year.

Related Articles

  1. VMware and Verizon Tackle BYOD with Dual Persona ...

  2. Dell profit dives 79 per cent on falling ...

  3. CMO interview: Becoming a change agent

    CMO

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

Comments are now closed.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: business issues, baidu, financial results
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Real-Time Protection Against Malware Infection
    Malware is at such high levels (more than 60 million unique samples per year) that protecting an endpoint with traditional antivirus software, has become futile. More than 100,000 new types of malware are now released every day, and antivirus vendors are racing to add new protection features to try to keep their protection levels up. Read more.
    Learn more »
  • 2013 Global Information Security Survey: Initial findings
    The results of PwC’s annual Global Information Security Survey indicate that companies are confident in their efforts to secure systems, information, and privacy. Strategies and personnel are in place, they say, and processes and technology are humming along. The number of incidents reported seems manageable. Read more.
    Learn more »
  • The Foundation for Cloud Management
    For businesses looking to provide real-time business solutions to employees and customers alike, you need to have a comprehensive network management strategy. The network is the foundation of all successful cloud services; it must be robust to meet traffic, efficiency, and performance demands. Download today the four steps to get your network operations cloud-ready.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments