Baidu Posts Worst Sales Fall on Record Despite AI Boom
Baidu enjoyed a headstart in China’s AI race but it soon lost its lead to rivals including ByteDance and Alibaba.
Photographer: Na Bian/BloombergBaidu Inc. posted its biggest quarterly revenue slide on record, highlighting a weakening advertising business while it tries to keep up in the artificial intelligence race.
Revenue declined 7% to 31.2 billion yuan ($4.4 billion) for the quarter ended September, just ahead of the average projection. It swung to a net loss of about 11.2 billion yuan during the period, reflecting writedowns on assets. Its shares weakened about 2% in pre-market US trading.