Search engine giant Baidu (9888.HK), beat quarterly revenue estimates on Tuesday, indicating some recovery in the Chinese advertising market.
Baidu has offset losses through its AI Cloud segment's growth, and in a strategic shift amid intensifying competition, announced last week that its next-generation AI model Ernie will become open-source from June 30.
Baidu's online marketing business, which contributes the majority of its revenue, stood at 19.34 billion yuan ($2.66 billion). Analysts had estimated 19 billion yuan.
But its revenue that does not depend on online marketing rose 18% to 9.8 billion yuan, largely driven by its AI Cloud business.
The company reported a revenue of 34.12 billion yuan for the fourth quarter, beating analysts' estimate of 33.32 billion yuan, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Baidu's U.S.-listed shares were down about 2% in premarket trading.
($1 = 7.2770 Chinese yuan renminbi)
