BIDU Q2 2022 Earnings

Call Details

• Call Title: Baidu, Inc. Q2 2022 Earnings Call
• Date: August 30, 2022 at 12:00 PM UTC
• Management Team:
  • Juan Lin (Director of Investor Relations)
  • Robin Li (Co-founder and CEO)
  • Rong Luo (CFO)
  • Li Zhenyu (EVP in charge of Baidu AI Cloud Group)
  • Li Zhenyu (SVP in charge of Baidu Intelligent Driving)

Call Summary

Financial Performance

• Total revenue was RMB 29.6B in Q2 2022, down 5% year-over-year.
• Baidu Core revenue was RMB 23.2B in Q2 2022, down 4% year-over-year.
• Baidu Core online marketing revenue was RMB 17.1B in Q2 2022, down 10% year-over-year.
• Baidu Core non-online marketing revenue was RMB 6.1B in Q2 2022, up 22% year-over-year driven by cloud and AI businesses.
• Baidu AI Cloud revenue was RMB 4.3B in Q2 2022, up 31% year-over-year and contributed roughly 18%-20% of Baidu Core revenue in the quarter.
• Non-GAAP net income attributable to Baidu was RMB 5.5B and non-GAAP diluted EPS was RMB 15.79 per ADS in Q2 2022.

AI & Technology Initiatives

• Baidu AI Cloud grew 31% year-over-year and management emphasized AI-cloud integration as a differentiation versus peers.
• AI Cloud operating margin improved on both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter bases in Q2 2022 as the company focused on higher-quality revenue.
• ACE Smart Transportation revenue increased about 40% in Q2 2022 and the solution was adopted by 61 cities based on contracts over RMB 20M.
• ApolloGo provided 287,000 rides in Q2 2022, up almost 500% year-over-year and 50% quarter-over-quarter, and accumulated rides surpassed 1M on July 20, 2022.
• Apollo RT-6 robotaxi targets a mass production cost of RMB 250,000 and the company aims to deploy a sizable fleet of RT-6 in 2024.
• Short video distribution and GMV metrics accelerated, with quarterly GMV facilitated by Baidu Search up about 127% year-over-year and 6-18 festival GMV up about 260% year-over-year.