Baidu on Nov. 12, 2024, unveiled a pair of glasses with a built-in AI assistant, placing up a Chinese language rival to the Meta Ray-Bans which have confirmed a uncommon success in AI-powered {hardware}.
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BEIJING — Chinese language tech big Baidu on Thursday posted a 3% annual drop in third-quarter income, however beating market expectations amid AI cloud development.
The income print got here in at $4.78 billion for the quarter ending on Sept. 30. Web earnings for the interval rose by 14% to $1.09 billion.
Baidu famous a 12% surge in its non-online advertising and marketing income to the equal of $1.1 billion, primarily pushed by its synthetic intelligence cloud enterprise.
The corporate’s U.S.-traded shares fell almost 4% in premarket buying and selling following the discharge of its outcomes.
This is what analysts anticipated the corporate to report for the quarter, in keeping with LSEG estimates:
- Income: $4.63 billion
- Web earnings: $857.17 million
Baidu had reported income of 34.45 billion yuan ($4.75 billion) and web earnings of 6.68 billion yuan for the third quarter of 2023.
Beijing-based Baidu operates one of many main internet browser serps in China, together with a continuously used maps app. The corporate additionally sells cloud computing providers. On-line advertising and marketing drives a good portion of the agency’s income.
The expansion within the AI cloud enterprise offset “ongoing weak point” in Baidu’s on-line advertising and marketing stream, CEO Robin Li mentioned within the earnings launch, additionally commenting on the efficiency of the corporate’s Ernie generative AI mannequin and chatbot.
“Our robust AI capabilities are gaining broader market recognition, as evidenced by growing adoption of Ernie,” he mentioned.
Baidu has promoted its Ernie chatbot as a neighborhood different to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which is not accessible in China. Ernie bot now has 430 million customers, and applications entry its underlying AI mannequin round 1.5 billion occasions a day, greater than double the 600 million charge in August, Baidu mentioned final week.
“Regardless of the near-term pressures, we stay steadfast in our AI-focused technique and are assured in our long-term trajectory,” Li mentioned Thursday. “As we additional scale AI, we’re emboldened to search out the way it can drive improvements and create worth for shoppers, enterprises and society at giant.”
The corporate this month additionally introduced that its Xiaodu AI Glasses will start gross sales within the first half of subsequent yr. The wearable has a minimum of one digicam and makes use of Ernie’s AI capabilities and Baidu’s maps and search capabilities. Whereas Baidu hasn’t revealed a worth, the product is broadly anticipated to be a Chinese language different to Meta’s well-liked Ray-Ban good glasses.
Baidu introduced a administration rotation final month, with Junjie He, beforehand head of the cell ecosystem group, changing into the corporate’s interim Chief Monetary Officer, whereas former CFO Rong Luo assumed management of the cell division.
“AI Cloud continued to point out wholesome and sustainable growth within the third quarter,” he mentioned within the earnings launch. “In the meantime, Apollo Go continued to make operational strides, underpinning our confidence within the validity of the totally autonomous journey hailing enterprise mannequin.”
Apollo Go, which operates Baidu’s robotaxi enterprise, reported a 20% year-on-year surge in rides within the third quarter. The typical variety of rides a month rose to 329,333 throughout the third quarter, up from 287,500 within the first half of the yr, in keeping with CNBC calculations.
