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百度集团-SW(09888.HK):AI驱动转型进行时 广告仍待改善

Baidu Group-SW (09888.HK): Advertising still needs to be improved as AI-driven transformation progresses

Sinolink Securities ·  Nov 20

Brief performance review

On November 21, 2024, the company disclosed the results announcement for the third quarter of 2024. In 2024Q3, the company achieved revenue of 33.6 billion yuan, -3% year-on-year, and 2024Q3 non-GAAP net profit of 5.9 billion yuan, or -19% year-on-year.

Management analysis

Baidu Core: The advertising business still needs to be improved, the smart cloud continues to grow steadily, and Baidu's core profit continues to grow. Baidu's core revenue in 2024Q3 was 26.5 billion yuan, -0.29% YoY. Non-GAAP net profit attributable to Baidu's core was 7.54 billion yuan, +17% YoY. Online marketing revenue reached 18.8 billion yuan, -4% year-on-year. The weak macro environment put some pressure on the advertising business, and AI had a certain impact on short-term commercialization of products searched by users. Non-online marketing revenue reached 7.7 billion yuan, +12% year over year, mainly driven by smart cloud business.

The number of calls to the Wenxin large model continues to grow, and native applications continue to advance. The Wenxin large model reached 1.5 billion API calls per day, and two enhanced lightweight models, ERNIE Speed Pro and ERNIE LitePro, were launched. Wenxin said that the number of users reached 0.43 billion. The Baidu Smart Cloud Qianfan Model Platform has helped customers refine the model by 0.033 million, develop 0.77 million applications, and the Wenxin Smart Platform has settled in 0.15 million enterprises and 0.8 million developers.

Intelligent driving: The number of orders for Radish Express continues to grow rapidly, and the market share has further increased.

In 2024Q3, Radish Express's autonomous driving orders reached 0.988 million orders, an increase of 20% over the previous year, and the cumulative number of orders to provide autonomous driving services exceeded 8 million. 2024Q3, Radish Express accounted for more than 70% of the total number of driverless orders in the country, and increased to 80% in October.

iQiyi: Performance on the content supply side is lackluster, and members and advertising are under pressure. 2024Q3 revenue was 7.2 billion yuan, down 10% year on year; non-GAAP net profit was 0.48 billion yuan, -23% year over year.

Member revenue in 2024Q3 was 4.4 billion yuan, down 9% year on year. The Q3 content line performance was relatively weak, and member revenue growth was under pressure; advertising revenue was 1.3 billion yuan, -20% year over year, brand advertising declined, and performance advertising increased; and content distribution revenue was 0.81 billion yuan, +52% year over year.

Profit Forecasts, Valuations, and Ratings

We expect the company's 2024-2026 non-GAAP net profit to be 26.6/28.2/30.9 billion yuan, respectively, and the current stock price corresponding non-GAAP PE is 8.17/7.71/7.04X, maintaining a “buy” rating.

Risk warning

The recovery in advertising demand fell short of expectations; AI development fell short of expectations; and the autonomous driving business fell short of expectations.

The translation is provided by third-party software.


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