(Reuters) -China’s Baidu Inc beat second-quarter revenue estimates on Tuesday, helped by strength in advertising.
The company’s U.S.-listed shares rose 2.4% in premarket trading.
Businesses have revived spending on digital advertising after easing of COVID-19 restrictions spurred an economic recovery, benefiting the Chinese search engine giant, which relies on online ads for most of its revenue.
Baidu has also been focusing on its generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool, Ernie, to jump on the AI bandwagon — a trend that has caught the attention of investors and consumers.
The company’s revenue for the quarter ended June 30 was 34.06 billion yuan ($4.67 billion), compared with analysts’ average estimate of 33.28 billion yuan, according to Refinitiv data.
Its online marketing revenue rose 15% in the second quarter.
The company reported profit of 22.55 yuan per American Depositary Share, compared with profit of 15.79 yuan per share a year earlier.
($1 = 7.2928 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
