The Chinese tech giant Baidu recently released its financial report for Q1 2025. The latest report shows that Baidu earned 32.5 billion RMB (4.51 billion USD) in the first quarter, a 3% increase year-on-year (YoY). This result exceeded market expectations. Net profit also reached 7.7 billion RMB (1.07 billion USD).
Baidu’s core businesses earned 25.5 billion RMB (3.54 billion USD), up 7% YoY. Among them, online marketing revenue was 16 billion RMB (2.22 billion USD), down 6% YoY; non-online marketing business earned Baidu 9.4 billion RMB (1.31 billion USD), up 40%, which was driven by growth in its smart cloud services. The streaming platform iQiyi’s revenue was 7.2 billion RMB (999.65 million USD), a 9% decrease.
Baidu’s robotaxi service, Apollo Go (萝卜快跑), expanded to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the UAE this March before being cleared for trial in Hong Kong in April and Dubai in May. Also during this month, Apollo Go partnered with China Auto Renting Inc (神州租车), or CAR Inc. for driverless rental cars. In Q1 2025, the Baidu Apollo Go fulfilled over 1.4 million orders, a 75% increase YoY. By May 2025, Apollo Go has already provided service to over 11 million orders.
Baidu co-founder and CEO Robin Li commented that the strong performance of Baidu Smart Cloud services shows that the market is recognising the company’s AI services and solutions. Combined with the quick expansion of Apollo Go, Baidu’s AI-first strategy has proven to be the right course for the company. They recently unveiled the latest of its large language models (LLMs), the ERNIE 4.5 and its reasoning model, the ERNIE X1. Baidu is also competing in the new field of AI agents with its Xinxiang app, against the likes of Alibaba’s Quark and Manus. However, whether they can reclaim the lead in the AI field requires further monitoring.