Baidu Tops Q1 Backed By Robust Marketing Revenue; Remains Invested In AI - Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), iQIYI (NASDAQ:IQ)

Baidu, Inc (NASDAQ: BIDU) reported a first-quarter FY23 revenue growth of 10% year-on-year to $4.535 billion, beating the consensus of $4.310 billion.
Segments: Baidu's Core revenue increased 8% Y/Y to $3.35 billion; Online marketing revenue improved 6% Y/Y to $2.42 billion. Non-online marketing revenue grew 11% Y/Y to $928 million, driven by cloud and other AI-powered businesses.
Revenue from IQIYI, Inc IQ increased 15% Y/Y to $1.22 billion, beating the consensus of $1.15 billion. iQIYI subscribers reached 129 million, up from 101 million a year ago.
Baidu's SG&A increased by 20% Y/Y, and R&D expenses declined 3% Y/Y.
Margins: Baidu's adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 700 bps to 26%. Baidu Core's adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 600 bps to 30%.
Baidu's Non-GAAP earnings per ADS of $2.34 beat the consensus of $1.79.
Baidu held $28.25 billion in cash and equivalents and generated $661 million in free cash flow.
Robin Li, Co-founder and CEO of Baidu said, "We believe the emergence of generative AI and large language model presents a transformative potential of AI in various industries, to help people and organizations to achieve more and to place a positive impact on society. In light of this trend, Baidu has introduced its ERNIE Bot in China, which we plan to steadily incorporate into all our businesses. This will empower our products and offerings, drawing in a larger user and customer base, while allowing us to establish a new ecosystem around the ERNIE Bot for the new era."
Price Action: BIDU shares traded higher by 2.05% at $130.22 in the premarket session on the last check Tuesday.

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