Baidu Beats Expectations, Posts 59 Pct Revenue Growth In Q1 2014

Chinese search engine leader and advertising provider, Baidu, released financials for the first quarter of the year reporting total revenues of $1.53 billion USD at $1.24 earnings per share. That’s a 59.1 percent increase in revenue from the previous year and beats street expectations on both fronts. Analysts had expected the company to report $1.5 billion in revenue at $1.03 earnings per share.

Online marketing revenues were $1.51 billion, a year-over-year increase of 57.5 percent. Baidu claims to have had  roughly 446,000 active online marketing customers during the quarter, an 8.8 percent increase from the previous year, but a 1.1 percent decrease from the fourth quarter of 2013.

Revenue per online marketing customer was approximately $3,362, which is 44.1 percent higher than Q1 2013 and flat compared to Q4 2013.

Baidu says it is benefiting from being a “cross-platform service” able to meet the needs of mobile users and the rapid mobile adoption by advertisers. Robin Li, chairman and chief executive officer of Baidu said in the statement, “Our focus remained on growing our market-leading offerings in search and app distribution, and we continued to broaden our platform in newer areas like location-based services.”

Li added, “As the Internet disrupts more and more traditional industries, and mobile’s importance continues to grow, Baidu is uniquely positioned with our competitive advantage as a leading cross-platform information gateway with world class technology. We’re confident our focused approach to investment will continue to drive sustainable growth in the quarters ahead.”

The company said it expects growth to continue. For the second quarter of 2014, Baidu expects revenues to range between $1.90 and $1.95 billion, which would represent a 56.3 percent to 60 percent increase over the previous year.