Its fourth quarter revenue was up 94.4% t0 $371.3 million. Operating profit in the quarter grew by about 175% to $193.2 million) and net income grew about 171% to $175.9 million. The report was listed as $0.50 per ADS, or $0.52 EPS outside of items. Thomson Reuters had estimates of $0.46 EPS and $360.82 million in revenues.
Baidu expects for the quarter revenues to be $360.6 to $371.2 million, which would generate growth of 83.9% to 89.3% from the first quarter of 2010. Thomson Reuters has estimates of $354.06 million in revenues.
Baidu had about 276,000 active online marketing customers in the fourth quarter of 2010, which was up about 23.8% year over year and up about 1.5% from the third quarter. Revenue per online marketing customer was up approximately 56% to $1,348 from the 2009 fourth quarter and up 7.2% sequentially. The company plans to further integrate search with online e-commerce and social networking.
Traffic acquisition cost as a component of cost of revenues was $30.2 million, about 8.1% of total revenues. That is down from 16% in fourth quarter of 2009 and down from 8.9% the prior quarter. The company noted that the decrease in TAC as a percentage of total revenues reflects a continued impact of its traffic optimization efforts from previous quarters. Bandwidth costs also fell to 4.0% of total revenues.
As of December 31, 2010, Baidu’s cash and cash equivalent investments came to $1.236 billion. Shares closed up 1.96% at $108.63 and shares are up 8% at $117.25 in the after-hours. Mark that as a new all-time high. The prior 52-week trading range was $40.67 to $115.04.
The Chinese internet keeps growing, and Baidu has close to the lion’s share of the search.
JON C. OGG
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