Baidu Reports Revenue Exceeding Wall Street’s Expectations

This week China’s Baidu Inc. reported its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 results this week, revealing that Q4 revenue had beat Wall Street expectations.

For the quarter, the company’s total revenue rose 5% to 30.26 billion yuan ($4.69 billion), topping analysts’ average estimate of 30.06 billion yuan, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Excluding items, Baidu earned 20.08 yuan per ADS, beating estimates of 16.89 yuan.

“Baidu ended 2020 on a solid note with our business benefiting from improving macroeconomic environment and the digitalization of industrial Internet. Our focus on innovation through technology is paying off with Baidu Core non-marketing revenue growing 52% year over year in the fourth quarter,” said Robin Li, Co-founder and CEO of Baidu.

“As we enter 2021, Baidu is well positioned as a leading AI company with 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.”

“Baidu revenue reached US$16.4 billion with adjusted EBITDA reaching US$4.2 billion in 2020. Despite an unprecedented year, our business returned to growth and our profits were solid in the fourth quarter,” said Herman Yu, CFO of the company.

“Through years of investment in research, AI chip design, developer community, patents and talent development, we are turning AI into innovative use cases. For example, Baidu AI cloud differentiating with AI solutions grew 67% year over year in Q4, reaching an annualized run rate of US$2.0 billion. We will continue to invest heavily in technology to optimize Baidu’s long-term growth and pursue our mission to make the world simpler through technology.”

It was earlier this year that Baidu announced that it would set up a smart electric vehicle (EV) company with Geely.

“Our partnership is based on the belief that end-to-end integration of hardware and software will provide the best experience for autonomous driving,” Baidu Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Robin Li said.

A CEO and brand for the EV venture has already been decided and Baidu is planning to launch a new EV model in about three years.

Looking ahead, Baidu said it expects current-quarter revenue between 26 billion yuan and 28.5 billion yuan, above expectations of 25.79 billion yuan.

Last year the stock gained over 70%.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.