Baidu Reports Higher Q3 Profit

Chinese online search site Baidu.com BIDU released its third-quarter earnings results on Monday. The company reported that its net income for the quarter was $478.6 million, or $1.37 per share. This came in ahead of Wall Street analysts' consensus EPS estimates of $1.28. Revenues in the period were $994.6 million, which was a 49.7 percent increase over the year ago period. This just missed analysts' consensus revenue estimates of $1 billion. Traffic acquisition costs in the quarter were $85.6 million or 8.6 percent of total revenues versus 8 percent in last year's corresponding quarter. Looking ahead, Baidu said that it expects revenues to be in a range between $979.3 million and $1.010 billion for the fourth-quarter. This compares to analysts' current consensus of $1.03 billion for Q4.