A Baidu Apollo robotaxi passes by a Baidu workplace constructing in Beijing on Aug. 21, 2023.
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BEIJING — Chinese language tech firm Baidu on Tuesday reported better-than-expected income, up by 15% year-on-year within the second quarter and bolstered by development in promoting.
This was the quickest quarterly year-on-year development tempo in two years, in response to Refinitiv information.
Baidu’s U.S.-traded shares have been up by greater than 4% in pre-market buying and selling.
Here is how Baidu did within the June quarter versus Refinitiv consensus estimates:
Income: 34.1 billion yuan ($4.7 billion) versus 33.28 billion yuan anticipated.
Inside Baidu’s core companies, on-line advertising income rose by 15% to 19.6 billion yuan within the second quarter, and non-online advertising income added 12% to six.8 billion yuan.
Earnings per American Depositary Share on a non-GAAP foundation have been 22.55 yuan, versus 15.79 yuan within the year-ago interval.
“Within the second quarter of 2023, Baidu Core accelerated income and revenue development, pushed by the strong efficiency of on-line advertising enterprise and working leverage,” stated Robin Li, Co-founder and CEO of Baidu, stated in a launch.
“Generative AI and enormous language fashions maintain immense transformative energy in quite a few industries, presenting a big market alternative for us,” he stated.
Baidu has been making progress with a Chinese language-language ChatGPT different known as Ernie bot, which is open to the general public and was launched in March. OpenAI’s wildly in style rival chatbot is not simply accessible within the nation.
Final week, Baidu introduced that 5 Ernie bot plugins — together with ones for shortly changing textual content to video and for PDF search — would turn into extra broadly obtainable to customers. Three of the plugins can be used concurrently, in response to the corporate.
Baidu final week additionally revealed an AI-powered assistant that would assist with duties together with reserving conferences, air tickets and resorts. It was not instantly clear how customers may acquire the assistant product.
The corporate can be seeking to increase the attain of AI into the auto sector. This month, the corporate introduced a strategic settlement with state-owned Changan Car to develop autonomous driving capabilities based mostly on the AI mannequin behind Baidu’s Ernie bot.
Baidu just isn’t alone in its foray, as different Chinese language tech giants are additionally pushing into AI-related merchandise. Earlier this month, e-commerce big Alibaba claimed that “robust demand” for coaching synthetic intelligence fashions on the cloud and the associated enterprise alternative was simply starting.
Web titan Tencent stated throughout its earnings launch final week that it plans to launch its personal AI mannequin later this 12 months, to be used in merchandise corresponding to gaming and promoting.
Robotaxi enterprise
Baidu additionally operates self-driving taxis underneath the Apollo Go model in China. Within the second quarter, Baidu stated it ran roughly 714,000 robotaxi rides, up from 660,000 within the first quarter.
The corporate was allowed to begin charging fares for public robotaxi rides in Beijing in November 2021. Passengers can ebook the rides, that are sometimes extremely sponsored, through an app.
Many of the robotaxis, which can be found in components of many main Chinese language cities, nonetheless have human workers inside.
In June, the corporate stated it acquired approval to function robotaxis with out staff in a suburb of Shenzhen. That adopted comparable approval in August 2022 to take away human workers in some robotaxis in components of Wuhan and Chongqing.