Baidu’s share price jumps in after hours trading after the company reports revenue to have soared
Chinese search engine Baidu's share price jumped almost five per cent in after hours trading after the company reported strong financial results.
Sometimes dubbed China's Google, Baidu reported first quarter total revenue had climbed 24.3 per cent year-on-year to 15.82bn yuan (£1.68bn).
The company also said that online marketing revenue had risen to 14.93bn yuan in the three months ending 31 March, representing 19.3 per cent year-on-year growth.
Meanwhile, operating profit in the first quarter of 2016 was 2.21bn yuan, a 2.6 per cent increase from the same period in 2015. Total operating costs rose 28.8 per cent to 13.61bn yuan.
Read more: Baidu sees share price rocket as profit jumps 663 per cent and revenue climbs in fourth quarter
"We had an excellent start to 2016, and we've made great strides toward realisation of our vision to connect people with information and services and provide an integrated solution to our customers," said Robin Li, chairman and chief executive of Baidu.
"In 2016, we will continue to build out our integrated platform, and explore the new business opportunities that our core business has opened up for us."
And it's looking good for the next quarter too. Baidu forecast revenue of 20.11bn yuan to 20.58bn yuan for the second quarter.
Baidu, which owns a chunk of Uber, is continuing the upward trend it started when reporting figures for the third quarter of 2015.
The company said it wanted to continue to invest in mobile, which appears to have paid off given the company said its mobile business accounted for nearly two-thirds of total revenue. It also said mobile search monthly active users stood at 663m for the month of March, a nine per cent year-on-year increase.