On Tuesday, Baidu, Inc (NASDAQ: BIDU) reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $4.68 billion, down 2% year-on-year, topping the analyst consensus estimate of $4.56 billion.
Baidu’s adjusted earnings per ADS of $2.63 beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.78. The stock price slid after the report.
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Segments: Baidu’s Core revenue grew by 1% year over year to $3.8 billion; Online marketing revenue declined by 7% year over year to $2.46 billion.
Non-online marketing revenue grew 18% year over year to $1.34 billion, driven by the AI Cloud business. AI Cloud business grew by 26% during the quarter.
Revenue from IQIYI, Inc (NASDAQ: IQ) decreased 14% year over year to $906.00 million, missing the analyst consensus estimate of $909.96 million.
Baidu’s SG&A expenses were $915 million, up 14% year over year, primarily due to an increase in expected credit losses, channel spending, and promotional marketing expenses. R&D expenses declined 12% year over year to $756 million.
Baidu’s adjusted EBITDA margin declined by 600 bps to 20%, and its Core adjusted EBITDA margin decreased by 600 bps to 24%. As of December 31, 2024, Baidu had $19.1 billion in cash and equivalents and generated $3 million in free cash flow during the quarter.
Co-founder and CEO Robin Li said 2024 marked a pivotal year in the company’s transformation from an internet-centric to an AI-first business. AI Cloud gained momentum, fueled by broad market recognition of its full-stack AI capabilities.
In the Mobile Ecosystem, Li noted that it was steadfast in advancing the AI transformation. Apollo Go paved the way for global expansion and scalable, asset-light strategies. Li expects its AI investments to deliver more significant results in 2025.
Baidu stock declined 8% in the last 12 months as its AI models failed to gain traction, like Alibaba Group Holdings (NYSE:BABA), ByteDance, and DeepSeek. The Chinese search engine giant plans to launch Ernie 5.0 in late 2025 and offer Ernie Bot free to all users. Baidu is also a key Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) partner as the latter aims to add AI features to its iPhones for China.
Price Action: BIDU stock traded lower by 2.29% at $95.25 premarket at the last check Tuesday.
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