Shares of Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) tumbled more than 8 percent in extended trading on Thursday after the Chinese Internet giant reported first-quarter results that missed analysts' estimates. The company's profit for the first quarter rose 9 percent on strong revenue growth.
Baidu generates majority of its revenues from search-engine advertising. Its online marketing revenues for the first quarter surged 40 percent to RMB5.95 billion. However, competition from other sites and the more popular mobile search has impacted Baidu's ad revenues.
Baidu's active online marketing customers in the quarter were 410,000, a 27 percent increase from the year-ago period. Revenue per online marketing customer rose 9 percent from last year to about RMB14,500 or $2,335.
Baidu's net income for the first quarter was RMB2.04 billion or $328.9 million, up from RMB1.88 billion for the year-ago quarter. Earnings per ADS rose to RMB5.88 or $0.95, from RMB5.38 in the prior year quarter.
Excluding share-based compensation expenses, earnings per ADS for the latest quarter were RMB6.20, or $1.00. On average, eighteen analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $1.03 per share. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.
Baidu's total revenues for the quarter grew 40 percent year-over-year to RMB5.97 billion or $961.00 million from RMB4.26 billion in the same period last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $969.00 million.
Looking ahead to the second quarter, Baidu forecasts revenue in a range of RMB7.37 billion to RMB7.55 billion, or $1.19 billion to $1.22 billion, representing an increase of 35.1 percent to 38.4 percent. Analysts expect the company to report revenues of $1.20 billion for the quarter.
BIDU closed Thursday's regular trading session at $92.34, up $4.25 or 4.82 percent on a volume of 7.48 million shares. However, in after-hours, the stock declined $7.51 or 8.13 percent to $84.83.
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