Earnings Preview: Baidu Hoping Ingenuity Translates into Cash

Baidu.com

is set to report its latest earnings after the close on Thursday. Wall Street analysts have a consensus estimate of 90 cents per share, up from 50 cents per share last year. That estimate risen from 89 cents over the past quarter. Analysts are projecting earnings of $2.96 per share for the fiscal year. They are also projecting that revenue this quarter will remain flat at $700.3 million. Revenue is expected to come in at $2.24 billion.

, a crowdsourcing aggregator of earnings estimates, expectations are lower. Estimize users believe that Baidu will only report $0.79 per share, over $0.10 less than the Street. Deutsche Bank said in a Monday report that BIDU could again deliver upside to its forecasts for a range of reasons, from under-penetration of SME accounts to the continuous shift toward targeted, pay-for-performance advertising solutions such as Baidu.

The Beijing-based company is a Chinese-language Internet search provider. It serves three types of online participants, including users, customers and baidu union members, and it offers a Chinese-language search platform at www.baidu.com. Its online marketing customers consist of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) throughout China, domestic corporations and Chinese divisions or subsidiaries of multinational corporations. Competitors include Google

, and Sina

, an online media company and MVAS provider in the People's Republic of China (

) and the global Chinese communities.

BIDU's revenue has been rising for the previous three quarters in succession. In Q3, revenue rose 93.9% to $653.9 million while the figure rose 87.1% in the second quarter from the year earlier and 96.3% in the first quarter. Analysts rate Baidu.com as a buy, for the most part. Goldman Sachs said in a Tuesday report that it believes Baidu faces more competition in mobile search than in desktop-based search, because alternative mobile search providers could compete on ease of access and different mobile search habits, rather than on brand. “Although Google has diminished desktop search capabilities, it has a better presence in mobile search through Android.”