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. Internet revenue for the interval rose by 14% to $1.09 billion.
Baidu famous a 12% surge in its non-online advertising income to the equal of $1.1 billion, primarily pushed by its synthetic intelligence cloud enterprise.
The corporate’s U.S.-traded shares fell practically 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
- Internet revenue: $857.17 million
Baidu had reported income of 34.45 billion yuan ($4.75 billion) and web revenue of 6.68 billion yuan for the third quarter of 2023.
Beijing-based Baidu operates one of many main internet browser search engines like google in China, together with a incessantly used maps app. The corporate additionally sells cloud computing companies. On-line advertising 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 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 sturdy AI capabilities are gaining broader market recognition, as evidenced by growing adoption of Ernie,” he mentioned.
Baidu has promoted its Ernie chatbot as an area various 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 12 months. The wearable has at the very least one digicam and makes use of Ernie’s AI capabilities and Baidu’s maps and search capabilities. Whereas Baidu hasn’t revealed a value, the product is broadly anticipated to be a Chinese language various to Meta’s in style Ray-Ban sensible glasses.
Baidu introduced a administration rotation final month, with Junjie He, beforehand head of the cellular ecosystem group, turning into the corporate’s interim Chief Monetary Officer, whereas former CFO Rong Luo assumed management of the cellular division.
“AI Cloud continued to indicate 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 experience 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 common variety of rides a month rose to 329,333 through the third quarter, up from 287,500 within the first half of the 12 months, in keeping with CNBC calculations.