Baidu Profits Surge 79 Percent

Baidu.com Inc. (BIDU) Chinas largest Internet search company beat analyst expectations, the company reported a 79 percent gain in quarterly profits. With the growth of Chinas economic boom and the upcoming Beijing Olympics the company has been attracting more online advertising. Analyst were looking for the company to report forth quarter revenue of $77.1 million with EPS of 71 cents but the company reported $78.3 million and 87 cents. RBC Capital Markets analyst Stephen Ju raised its rating on the company to Outperform from Sector Perform.

There were recently power outages due to winter storms in China that led to a 4.3 - 7.1 percent fall in its first quarter revenue. Baidu sees revenues for the first quarter of $73.1 million to $75.1 million below analyst expectations. In pre market trading Baidu shares were up $14.11, or 5.4 percent, to $275.20 from the close the previous day at $261.09.

Baidu.com, Inc. provides Chinese language Internet search services. Its services enable users to find relevant information online, including Web pages, news, images, and multimedia files through its Web site links. The company offers a Chinese language search platform, which consists of Web sites and certain online application software, as well as Baidu Union, which is a network of third-party Web sites and software applications. Its products include Baidu Web Search that allows users to locate information, products, and services using Chinese language search terms; Baidu Post Bar and Baidu Knows, which provide users with a query-based searchable community; and Baidu News that provides links to an extensive selection of local, national, and international news.

The company also offers Baidu MP3 Search that provides algorithm-generated links to songs and other multimedia files provided by Internet content providers; Baidu Image Search, which enables users to search millions of images on the Internet; Baidu Space to create personalized homepages in a query-based searchable community; Baidu Encyclopedia; yule.baidu.com, an entertainment channel; and other online search products and software tools.

Baidu.com designs and delivers its online marketing services to its P4P and tailored solutions customers based on their requirements. The company's auction-based P4P services enable its customers to bid for priority placement of their links in keyword search results. Baidu.com primarily serves small and medium enterprises, large domestic corporations, and Chinese divisions or subsidiaries of large multinational corporations in the e-commerce, information technology services, consumer products, manufacturing, health care, entertainment, education, financial services, and real estate and other industries. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Beijing, China.


By: Marlin Rolle