Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) released its third quarter earnings report after closing bell in New York tonight, posting non-GAAP earnings of $1.90 per American depository receipt share on $2.2 billion, a 52% increase year over year. Analysts had been looking for earnings of $1.69 per American depository receipt share on $2.22 billion in revenue.
Diluted earnings per share were $1.79 per share.
Key metrics from Baidu’s earnings report
Operating profits were $638.6 million, a 17.4% year over year increase. The company reported traffic acquisition costs of $283.8 million, which made up 12.9% of its total revenues compared to 11.7% in the same quarter last year. Baidu management said mobile traffic surpassed PC traffic in the quarter. Mobile revenue was 36% of the company’s total revenue.
Online marketing revenues were $2.188 billion for the quarter, a 51.8% year over year increase. The company had approximately 516,000 active online marketing customers during the third quarter, an 11.2% increase year over year and a 5.7% increase sequentially. Revenue per online marketing customer rose 35.6% year over year to about $4,220.
Adjusted EBITDA was $801 million, a 21% year over year increase. Bandwidth costs were $122.6 million or 5.6% of total revenues. Content costs were $81.2 million or 3.7% of total revenues.
“We are particularly pleased with the progress we have made in connecting people with services through innovative O2O initiatives like Baidu Connect—a better way for businesses to connect with their targeted consumers on mobile devices,” said Baidu Chairman and CEO Robin Li in a statement. “It’s an exciting time for Baidu. The O2O market opportunity is enormous, and our leading positions in mobile search and maps, as well as our extensive sales force, position us optimally to capture that opportunity.”
Baidu guides for fourth quarter
The Chinese search giant guided for fourth quarter revenue to be between $2.26 billion and $2.32 billion. Those numbers represent an increase of 45.4% to 49.6% year over year.
Analysts had been projecting $2.29 billion for the fourth quarter.
