Beijing (AFP)
Chinese internet giant Baidu on Tuesday announced a year-over-year drop in revenue in the first quarter due to the pandemic, despite increased traffic on its platforms.
Based in Beijing and listed in New York, Baidu is the dominant search engine in China. It is also present in online video and artificial intelligence, in particular with the development of autonomous cars.
In a statement, the group reported sales down 7% year on year in the first quarter to 22.5 billion yuan (2.9 billion euros).
At the end of February, Baidu had anticipated a decline in revenues of around 5 to 13% over this period, due to the epidemic of new coronavirus.
Its core business activities (mainly online advertising) earned it 15.3 billion yuan (1.9 billion euros) between January and March, down 13% from a year ago.
Its net profit reached 41 million yuan (5.2 million euros).
"The pandemic is (now) under control in China (...) Baidu should benefit from a recovery in the economy" in the country, said in a statement Robin Li, founder and CEO of Baidu.
Particularly sensitive to the economic situation, the group was already under pressure in the face of the rise in power of competitors, notably the start-up ByteDance (owner of the video platforms Douyin and TikTok), which is cutting into the online advertising market.
Baidu, on the other hand, recorded a sharp increase in traffic on its platforms during the pandemic, at a time when millions of Chinese were confined to their homes for fear of being infected with the virus.
Its search engine notably saw the number of requests jump by 45% in March over a year on its application for smartphones.
But it is especially its iQiyi streaming platform, a sort of Chinese-style Netflix, which has benefited the most from the epidemic.
Number one in online video in China thanks to its very popular music series and shows, iQiyi totaled 118.9 million subscribers in March (+ 23% year-on-year).
© 2020 AFP