Baidu Revenue Falls on Weak Advertising Demand, Posts Loss on Impairment
By Tracy Qu
Chinese search-engine giant Baidu reported lower revenue as advertising demand remained weak, and swung to a quarterly loss, hit by an impairment charge.
The internet company said Tuesday that revenue fell 7.1% from a year earlier to 31.17 billion yuan, equivalent to $4.39 billion. That was ahead of analysts' expectations for 30.62 billion yuan, according to a FactSet consensus.
The company booked a net loss of 11.23 billion yuan for the third quarter, compared with profit of 7.63 billion a year earlier, hurt by an impairment charge for long-lived assets. Excluding that, profit was 2.6 billion yuan, Baidu said.
Analysts in a FactSet poll had expected net profit of 1.73 billion yuan for the quarter.
Once considered one of China's important technology titans alongside Alibaba and Tencent, Baidu has been facing pressure on both its top and bottom lines as its core advertising business slows. Seeking new avenues of growth, the Beijing-based company has been investing heavily in fields such as artificial intelligence, self-driving technology and chip development.
Baidu unveiled two artificial-intelligence chips last week as Chinese tech giants ramped up their chip-making efforts, responding to Beijing's calls for technological self-sufficiency.
Its Ernie Bot--the first real Chinese contender to ChatGPT--remains one of China's most popular chatbots. The company introduced a new version of its foundation model at its annual tech event in November, saying the model can grasp user commands in different media formats.
Write to Tracy Qu at tracy.qu@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 18, 2025 05:01 ET (10:01 GMT)
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