Baidu Rises as Analysts Laud Sales-Growth Outlook

Analysts say Baidu's second-quarter-revenue guidance is solid.

Author:: Rob Lenihan
Publish date:: May 18, 2021 11:09 AM EDT

Analysts came out in support of Baidu (BIDU) - Get Report Tuesday after the Chinese search and AI giant beat Wall Street's first-quarter expectations.

Shares of the Beijing company at last check were up 2.1% to $193.08.

Baidu reported net income of $3.92 billion, or $11.26 a share. Adjusted earnings coming to $1.89 a share, up 40% from a year earlier. The FactSet consensus called for $1.63 a share.

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Revenue totaled $4.29 billion, up 25% from a year ago, while the FactSet estimate called for revenue of $4.26 billion.

For the second quarter, Baidu said it expects revenue to range $4.5 billion to $5 billion. The FactSet consensus calls $4.68 billion.

Citi analyst Alicia Yap noted the acceleration in the growth of non-ad revenue, which she said suggested momentum from cloud revenue traction, according to Bloomberg.

Yap called the company's second-quarter-revenue guidance solid and said she was “particularly reassured with Baidu Core revenue guidance of 20% to 33% year-over-year growth, likely benefiting from continued secular recovery of ad revenue as well as growth momentum from cloud revenue and other services."

Benchmark analyst Fawne Jiang said Baidu’s second-quarter-revenue forecast implies 14% to 25% year-over-year growth, which exceeds Wall Street's expectations for 16% growth.

While Jiang said the results were solid and highlighted segment revenue growth, she noted Baidu's core revenue growth was off a low base of first-quarter 2020.

Baidu brings "innovation across many sectors, including marketing cloud, enterprise cloud, smart transportation, autonomous driving, smart assistant and AI chip, through our decade-long investment in AI," Robin Li, co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.

Baidu, ViacomCBS (VIACA) - Get Report and Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) - Get Report all rose Monday after George Soros's investment firm said it snapped up shares of the companies as well as Discovery (DISCA) - Get Report as they were being sold off during the collapse of Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management.

In February, Baidu beat analyst earnings estimates and fell just shy of consensus revenue estimates for the fourth quarter.

BlackBerry (BB) - Get Report said in January that had expanded its partnership with Baidu in the area of automated high-definition mapping software that Baidu uses in its autonomous driving technology.