Baidu sales, profit top estimates as news, video woo advertisers

Baidu Inc.’s second-quarter revenue and profit topped expectations as the rising popularity of its personalized news service helped China’s largest search engine sustain growth.

Sales jumped to 26 billion yuan ($3.93 billion) in the three months that ended in June, topping the 25.6 billion yuan average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That marks the sixth straight quarter of revenue growth at the company, which was forced to block a large tranche of advertisers under regulatory pressure after a medical ad scandal in 2016.

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Net income for the recent quarter hit 6.4 billion yuan, versus the average 4.82 billion yuan projected. Mobile revenue made up 77 percent of the total, Baidu said, compared with 72 percent a year earlier. The company also forecast third-quarter sales of 27.4 billion yuan to 28.8 billion yuan, in line with the 27.9 billion yuan analysts predicted.

“The mobile Baidu app shows healthy user and activation trends,” CICC analyst Natalie Wu said in a note to clients before the earnings. “We see still high monetization potential for Baidu feeds in the coming 6 to 12 months.”

U.S. shares of Beijing-based Baidu climbed 3.8 percent in extended trading following the report. They had slipped 1.7 percent to $247.18 at the close in New York.