Baidu reported quarterly earnings Tuesday that beat expectations while touting market opportunities it sees for artificial intelligence products. American-listed shares of BIDU stock climbed on the day.
The Chinese search giant reported adjusted earnings per share of $3.11 from $4.7 billion in revenue for its fiscal second quarter that ended in June. Analysts polled by FactSet expected the company to earn $2.30 a share on sales of $4.57 billion.
Profits jumped 43% from year-ago earnings of $2.37 a share. Revenue for the company increased 15% from $4.43 billion.
BIDU stock closed up 2.8% at 128.36 on the stock market today.
Baidu, which operates the second-largest search engine in the world, said average monthly active users for its app reached 677 million in June, up 8% from the same period last year.
BIDU Stock: Company Launched An AI Chatbot
Baidu increasingly has focused on expanding its artificial intelligence products, including an AI chatbot called Ernie launched earlier this spring.
"Generative AI and large language models hold immense transformative power in numerous industries, presenting a significant market opportunity for us," Co-Founder and Chief Executive Robin Li said in written remarks. "To stay ahead of the game, we keep upgrading our models to generate more creative responses, while improving training throughput and lowering inference costs."
The company reported $3.64 billion in core online marketing revenue, up 14% from the same quarter last year.
BIDU stock closed flat Monday but was up about 9% year to date. However, Baidu's American-listed shares had fallen more than 20% from the start of the month, as concerns mount about consumer spending in China.
Chinese e-commerce companies Alibaba and JD.com have fallen 13% and 19% respectively on the month.
BIDU stock holds a Composite Rating of 83 out of a best-possible 99, according to IBD Stock Checkup. Also, it has a Relative Strength Rating of only 67 out of a best-possible 99.
The stock ranks 12th out of 79 in the Internet-Content industry group.
