Baidu’s stock gained momentum on Wednesday as investors shifted their focus from the company’s quarterly loss to the solid performance of its artificial intelligence-driven businesses. The Chinese tech giant released its third-quarter earnings late Tuesday, revealing steady growth across cloud services, autonomous driving initiatives, and AI-native applications — even as its traditional online advertising segment continued to face pressure.
Hong Kong-listed Baidu shares rose as much as 4% to HK$115.7 before easing slightly, still trading about 2% higher by 03:13 GMT. The market reaction reflects growing confidence in Baidu’s long-term AI strategy, which is becoming a more critical driver of revenue and innovation.
For the third quarter, Baidu reported total revenue of RMB31.2 billion, a 7% decline from the previous year. The weakness was primarily concentrated in its online marketing business, which dropped 18% to RMB15.3 billion as advertisers remained cautious amid China’s uneven economic recovery. The company also recorded a net loss of RMB11.2 billion after taking RMB16.2 billion in impairment charges linked to long-lived assets. Without these charges, Baidu noted that net income would have reached RMB2.6 billion, underscoring healthier underlying operations.
A bright spot in the earnings report was the strong surge in AI-powered revenue, which grew more than 50% year-on-year to around RMB10 billion. This performance was driven by continued expansion in Baidu AI Cloud, rising demand for AI-native marketing solutions, and growing adoption of subscription-based AI applications. As China accelerates its push for artificial intelligence development, Baidu’s investments in foundation models, enterprise AI tools, and autonomous driving technologies appear well-positioned to capture new market opportunities.
Investors seem increasingly optimistic that Baidu’s pivot toward high-growth AI businesses could offset lingering pressure on advertising, helping the company advance its transformation into a leading AI platform in China’s competitive technology landscape.
