REUTERS: Chinese internet search giant Baidu Inc beat quarterly earnings estimates on Monday after signing more people up to its video streaming service, sending its shares higher in a relief rally.
Baidu's total revenue for the three months to the end of June rose to 26.33 billion yuan from 25.97 billion yuan a year earlier, beating a forecast 25.77 billion yuan, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. But there were some red flags at separately listed Netflix-like iQiyi, where shares tumbled by the same magnitude after a 20per cent jump in costs as the company spent more on content to entice subscribers undercut a 15per cent rise in revenue to 7.11 billion yuan.Baidu, whose search engine dominates the market in China, has been under pressure as factors such as U.S.-China trade tensions and tougher government regulation weighed on key revenue contributors like advertising.
While Baidu has been expanding into other business lines such as cloud services and mini programmes within its Baidu App, most of its success so far has been at iQiyi.