Baidu had a stronger quarter in Q2 2018 with search exhibiting robust revenue growth driven by AI-powered monetization capabilities and Baidu feed continuing strong traffic, according to its financial results. The newly launched Xiaodu series speakers and the adoption of DuerOS handled over 400 million queries in June 2018, almost doubling the workload again over a three-month span.
Baidu released Baidu Brain v3.0, which features multi-modal deep semantic understanding to enable conversational AI in Chinese, along with a full stack of over 110 AI capabilities.
At Baidu Create, its AI developer conference, Baidu also released three advanced, easy-to-use toolkits—EasyDL, AutoDL and AI Studio—for developers to work with PaddlePaddle to build and train deep learning models at scale.
PaddlePaddle is Baidu’s open-sourced deep learning platform made available to developers and businesses to implement their AI ideas.
Baidu Search
Baidu App, which offers search and personalized news feed, continues to see robust growth, reaching 148 million daily active users in June 2018, up 17% from the same period last year.
At Baidu Create, Baidu announced the launch of its smart mini program, which allows mobile apps in the form of a mini program to directly provide users with a seamless native-app experience through the Baidu App and other major apps in its network, bypassing the additional step of an app download.
Baidu upgraded its AI-powered ad monitoring system, which can now remove bad ads at a rate of up to 4,500 ads per minute.
DuerOS
Baidu released DuerOS v3.0, which features an improved interactive user experience, enriched content ecosystem and upgraded turn-key solutions for the DuerOS Intelligent Device Platform.
DuerOS v3.0 supports new capabilities, including voiceprint recognition, children mode, continuous conversation without wake words (“Geek Mode”), video recognition and more, and added new content partners, including Discovery, VIPKID online education and Uncle Kai Storytelling.
DuerOS installed base reached 90 million devices and voice queries surpassed 400 million in June 2018. In June 2018, Baidu launched DuerOS-powered Xiaodu Smart Speaker, which sold out 10,000 units within 90 seconds of its first two online sales, continuing its popular Xiaodu series speaker
Baidu’s total revenues in Q2 2018 were RMB 26.0 billion ($3.93 billion), increasing 32% year over year. Mobile revenue represented 77% of total net revenues, compared to 72% for Q2 2017. Total revenues of Baidu Core were RMB 20.0 billion ($3.03 billion), increasing 28% YoY.
Its operating income was RMB 5.4 billion ($819 million), increasing 29% year over year. Operating margin was 21%, similar to Q2 2017. Net income attributable to Baidu was RMB 6.4 billion ($967 million), and diluted earnings attributable to Baidu per ADS was RMB 18 ($2.74).
China mobile internet market forecast 2018-2020