Baidu reports 75% increase in revenue and net income for Q1, but shares fall

Baidu, China’s leading search engine company, has just announced its financial results for Q1 2012. The company’s revenues for the quarter came in at RMB4.264 billion ($677.1 million), a 75 percent increase compared to the same period last year.

Baidu’s earning per share came in at $0.87. Net income was up almost 76 percent compared to Q1 2011, to RMB1.883 billion ($299 million).

The results are largely in line with Wall Street expectations, but that isn’t stopping Baidu’s share price from taking quite a nosedive in after-hours trading.

Shares were down 10 percent earlier, but roughly 8.5 percent at the time of writing.

In a statement, Baidu chairman and CEO Robin Li commented:

“We’ve started the year with solid financial results and steady business progress. Although this is usually a seasonally slow quarter, our effective sales and marketing efforts enabled us to expand our SME customer base significantly.”

Baidu’s sales figure per online marketing customer (which it derives pretty much all its revenue from) for the first quarter of 2012 was approximately RMB13,300 ($2,112), a roughly 50 percent increase from the corresponding period in 2011, but a 7.6 percent decrease compared to the fourth quarter of 2011.

Operating profit was RMB2.091 billion ($332.1 million), representing a 75.1 percent increase compared to Q1 2011.

As of March 31, 2012, Baidu had cash and equivalents of RMB16.115 billion (approximately $2.6 billion).

For the second quarter of 2012, Baidu expects total revenues to range from RMB5.335 billion ($847.2 million) to RMB5.460 billion ($867 million), which would represent a 56.2 percent to 59.9 percent year-over-year increase.

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