Baidu: In Q4 Mobile Search Revenues Exceeded PC Earnings

Chinese search engine Baidu reported Q4 revenues of roughly $2.26billion, which represented 48 percent year-over-year growth. However the company missed analyst expectations. Its outlook was also disappointing to financial analysts.

Revenues for the full year were $7.9 billion, which was 53 percent more than in 2013. Traffic acquisition costs were 13 percent of revenues. Baidu said it ended the year with cash and cash equivalents of $9.3 billion.

One of the factors cited for the revenue miss was the shift of search from PCs to mobile. Yet mobile revenues were 37 percent of total Baidu revenue for the year and in Q4 mobile revenues exceeded search revenues from PC search.

In the press release Baidu CEO Robin Li said:

We’ve successfully transitioned from a PC-centric to a mobile-first company, positioning us well for the next phase of our mobile opportunity: connecting people with services . . . In December, for the first time search revenue from mobile surpassed PC.

Baidu projected that Q1 2015 revenues would be in the range of $2.04 to $2.1 billion. The company controls more than 70 percent of the Chinese search market. Google has less than 5 percent.