Baidu Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2019 Results

BEIJING, Feb. 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) ("Baidu" or the "Company"), a leading search engine, knowledge and information centered Internet platform and AI company, today announced its unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2019^[1].

"We finished 2019 making tremendous progress in strengthening Baidu's mobile ecosystem. Through the building blocks of BJH publisher accounts, Smart Mini Program and Managed Page, Baidu App provides users single log-on, native-app-like experience to a wide range of information and services dispersed across isolated mobile apps and HTML5 websites. Baidu App's spanning mobile ecosystem has resulted in more users logging in, DAUs growing robustly to 195 million in December, up 21% year over year, and in-app search queries increasing almost 30% year over year," said Robin Li, Chairman and CEO of Baidu. "Baidu new AI businesses have also made great strides in 2019, as we built leadership in smart devices, smart transportation and enterprise cloud solutions with Baidu's leading AI technologies."

"Baidu delivered solid fourth quarter results with increasing year-over-year revenue growth rate, allowing 2019 revenue to reach RMB 107 billion, or US$15.4 billion," said Herman Yu, CFO of Baidu. "Baidu's quarterly operating margin has also been improving, through the strengthening of Baidu's mobile ecosystem and our focus on resource investment returns. Our leaner financial model and strong balance sheet put us in a good position to weather the slowing macro, while continuing to invest heavily in technology and new businesses, to optimize future growth."

Fourth Quarter 2019 Financial Highlights

Fiscal Year 2019 Financial Highlights

Other Highlights

Corporate

• Baidu employees have devoted significant efforts to help contain the novel coronavirus outbreak and fulfill the Company's corporate social responsibility, including the following:
  - On Baidu App, the Company launched a free medical consultation platform, to provide online access to doctors, answer pneumonia-related questions and save hospital resources. Baidu also partnered with medical experts to provide authoritative information on the novel coronavirus and leveraged its large platform reach to make available timely, reliable information to the public.
  - Baidu Maps is providing timely information, including the location of traffic control areas, designated hospitals and infected cases, to help users cope with the coronavirus outbreak. By leveraging big data, Baidu Maps helps track population migration and predict the spread of the epidemic in China.
  - Baidu leveraged its facial recognition and other AI technologies to develop and deploy many fever-screening systems to railway stations, hospitals and municipal government buildings in China. Baidu's fever-screening system can remotely measure the temperature of up to 200 people per minute, detect body temperatures of people wearing face masks and hats, and identify those not wearing masks or wearing them improperly. Baidu's AI model has also been open sourced, to further help reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
  - Baidu has pledged RMB 300 million to these efforts, provide awareness education and improve public health in China.
• The Company reported its ESG progress for 2019, noting: 1) Baidu AI has helped reunite over 10,000 missing persons with their families; and 2) Baidu data centers reduced carbon emissions by over 180,000 tons in 2019, with the average power usage effectiveness (PUE) of its data centers reaching 1.14, far exceeding the global industry average of 1.67 according to Uptime Institute, a globally recognized data center advisory organization.
• Baidu returned $149 million to its shareholders in the fourth quarter of 2019, under the 2019 Share Repurchase Program.

Mobile Ecosystem

• Baidu App's average daily active users ("DAUs") reached 195 million, up 21% year over year, in December 2019.
• Baidu App's large user scale and unique search-plus-feed distribution channels are attracting more original content creators, with BJH publisher accounts for Baidu feed, reaching 2.6 million, up 38% year over year, in December 2019.
• Baidu has partnered with major TV and provincial satellite stations, to provide TV streaming and VOD in Baidu App and short video apps. Through Baidu's mobile building blocks, TV stations can leverage Baidu's powerful content distribution channels to extend their reach and allow online users to engage with the TV shows.
• Merchants with HTML5 websites across many industries are switching to Baidu Managed Page, as the landing page for their search result. Revenue from Baidu Managed Page reached almost a quarter of Baidu Core's online marketing services revenue in the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Merchants with app development capabilities are adopting Baidu Smart Mini Program, whose monthly active users ("MAUs") reached 316 million, up 114% year over year, in December 2019.
• All six major express delivery companies in China have adopted Baidu Smart Mini Program, which provides native-app-like experience to logged-in users, such as allowing them to check the shipping status of their e-commerce orders and request for an express delivery simply by searching "express delivery" in Baidu App.
• Baidu Smart Mini Program is also extending its reach to government services. For example, employees in China can check the information of their housing fund, similar to social security in the U.S., by simply scanning their face with Baidu App, as a logged-in user.

DuerOS

• Monthly voice queries on DuerOS, a leading voice assistant for the Chinese language, surpassed 5.0 billion, up over 3 fold year over year, in December 2019. Monthly voice queries from Xiaodu first-party devices were 2.3 billion, up over 7 fold year over year.
• DuerOS skills store now offers over 3,600 skills in wide ranging genres, including online education, gaming and live streaming. DuerOS developer community has expanded to over 38,000 members.
• Xiaodu smart speakers ranked #1 in smart speaker shipments in China and Xiaodu Smart Display ranked #1 in smart display shipments globally for full year 2019, according to well-recognized market analytics firms Strategy Analytics and Canalys.
• Baidu released Xiaodu Smart Display X8 in December 2019, with enhanced capabilities powered by Baidu AI, allowing users to wake the device up with eye gestures, pause streaming content with hand gestures and receive report on moving objects in the house when the owner leaves home.

Cloud, AI Services & AI Platform 

• Baidu partnered with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, to launch a blockchain alliance with major Chinese commercial banks for inter-bank information verification built on Baidu's Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platform.
• In November 2019, Baidu released its end-to-end far-field Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) solutions, based on in-house designed Baidu Honghu AI chip. Baidu Brain's leading speech recognition capabilities are used across Baidu products, including Xiaodu smart speakers, DuerOS in-vehicle infotainment, Baidu Maps and Baidu call-center enterprise solutions. Developers have tapped Baidu Brain's speech recognition engine on Baidu open AI platform more than 10 billion times.
• Baidu is applying Baidu Kunlun, its high-performance AI chip, optimizing visual, speech, natural language processing and other AI capabilities, to power the Company's cloud servers.
• In December 2019, Baidu's pre-training framework for language understanding, ERNIE (Enhanced Representation through kNowledge IntEgration), became the first to score above 90 on the General Language Understanding Evaluation benchmark, or GLUE, which is widely considered as the benchmark for testing AI language understanding and otherwise dominated by U.S. technology firms and universities. ERNIE powers Baidu search and Xiaodu smart devices, to provide the best user experience.
• Baidu Maps has been selected by Tesla China to provide map cloud services, such as real-time traffic condition reporting, base map display and point-of-interest search. Baidu Maps is a leading location based service platform, supporting 1.8 million developers and tracking 2 billion daily kilometers.

Apollo

• Baidu partnered with Cangzhou, Hebei province, to develop smart transportation using Baidu's V2X solutions to improve traffic condition and safety. The adoption of Baidu's V2X solutions has led to a second Apollo robotaxi pilot program, launched in November 2019, with an initial fleet of 30 vehicles.
• Baidu also partnered with Yinchuan, Ningxia province, to provide the provincial capital with Baidu's V2X solutions to support autonomous trucking.
• At the Apollo Partner Conference in December 2019, Apollo v5.5 was released to support urban road point-to-point autonomous driving, as well as open-platform development for V2X and IoV solutions. Apollo has garnered 177 leading OEMs, suppliers and other partners, and over 36,000 developers worldwide.
• Apollo fleet has reached 3 million test kilometers on the road in December 2019, spanning across 23 cities, including Beijing, Wuhan, Cangzhou and Changchun. The municipality of Beijing granted Baidu its first batch of 40 manned autonomous driving licenses in December 2019.

iQIYI

• iQIYI subscribers reached 106.9 million in December 2019, adding 19.5 million subscribers year over year. iQIYI's large subscriber base further strengthens iQIYI's foundation to produce entertainment-oriented blockbuster originals.

Fourth Quarter 2019 Results

Total revenues reached RMB 28.9 billion ($4.15 billion), up 6% year over year and 3% quarter over quarter. Online marketing revenues were RMB 20.8 billion ($2.98 billion), decreasing 2% year over year and increasing 2% quarter over quarter. Other revenues were RMB 8.1 billion ($1.17 billion), increasing 35% year over year, driven mainly by the strong growth in cloud services, smart devices and iQIYI membership.

Revenue from Baidu Core reached RMB 21.7 billion ($3.12 billion), increasing 6% year over year and 3% quarter over quarter. Revenue from iQIYI reached RMB 7.5 billion ($1.08 billion), up 7% year over year. iQIYI membership revenue grew 21% year over year, offset by online advertising revenue declining 15% year over year.

Cost of revenues, were RMB 15.5 billion ($2.23 billion), decreasing 1% year over year, primarily due to a decrease in content costs and traffic acquisition costs, offset by increases in hardware and cloud cost of goods sold, impairment and amortization of intangible assets and depreciation expenses.

Selling, general and administrative expenses were RMB 4.0 billion ($568 million), decreasing 33% year over year, primarily due to decreased investment in channel spending and promotional marketing, as well as lower personnel related expenses.

Research and development expenses were RMB 4.8 billion ($683 million), increasing 5% year over year, primarily due to an increase in personnel related expenses.

Operating income was RMB 4.7 billion ($669 million) and operating margin was 16%. Baidu Coreoperating income was RMB 6.9 billion ($987 million), and Baidu Core operating margin was 32%.

Non-GAAP operating income was RMB 6.8 billion ($970 million), and non-GAAP operating margin was 23%. Non-GAAP Baidu Coreoperating income was RMB 8.5 billion ($1.22 billion), and non-GAAP Baidu Core operating margin was 39%.               

Total other income was RMB 699 million ($101 million), compared to total other loss of RMB 60 million for Q4 2018.

Income tax expense was RMB 304 million ($44 million), compared to RMB 484 million in Q4 2018.

Net income attributable to Baidu was RMB 6.3 billion ($ 911 million), and diluted earnings per ADS was RMB 18($2.62). Net income attributable to Baidu Core was RMB 7.4 billion ($1.07 billion). Non-GAAP net income attributable to Baidu was RMB 9.2 billion ($1.32 billion), and non-GAAP net margin was 32%. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per ADS amounted to RMB 27($3.81). Non-GAAP net income attributable to Baidu Core was RMB 10.0 billion ($1.43 billion), and non-GAAP net margin for Baidu Core was 46%.

Adjusted EBITDA was RMB 8.2 billion ($1.17 billion) and adjusted EBITDA margin was 28%. Adjusted EBITDA to Baidu Core was RMB 9.8 billion ($1.41 billion) and adjusted EBITDA margin for Baidu Core was 45%. 

As of December 31, 2019, cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments were RMB 147.4 billion ($21.17 billion), and cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investmentsexcluding iQIYI were RMB 135.9 billion ($19.52 billion). Free cash flow was RMB 10.1 billion ($1.46 billion). Free cash flowexcluding iQIYI was RMB 8.0 billion ($1.15 billion).

Fiscal Year 2019 Results

Total revenues reached RMB 107.4 billion ($15.43 billion), increasing 5% year over year, or 8% year over year, excluding the impact of announced divestures². Online marketing revenues were RMB 78.1 billion ($11.22 billion), decreasing 5 % year over year. Other revenues were RMB 29.3 billion ($4.21 billion), increasing 44% year over year, driven mainly by the strong growth in iQIYI membership, cloud services and smart devices.

Revenue from Baidu Core reached RMB 79.7 billion ($11.45 billion), increasing 2% year over year, or increasing 6% year over year, excluding the impact of announced divestures². Revenue from iQIYI reached RMB 29.0 billion ($4.17 billion), up 16% year over year. iQIYI membership revenue grew 36% year over year, offset by online advertising revenue declining 11% year over year.

Cost of revenues were RMB 62.9 billion ($9.03 billion), increasing 21% year over year, primarily due to increases in hardware and cloud cost of goods sold, content costs, depreciation expense, traffic acquisition costs and bandwidth costs.

Selling, general and administrative expenses were RMB 19.9 billion ($2.86 billion), increasing 4% year over year.

Research and development expenses were RMB 18.3 billion ($2.64 billion), increasing 16% year over year, primarily due to an increase in personnel related expenses.

Operating income was RMB 6.3 billion ($906 million) and operating margin was 6%. Baidu Coreoperating income was RMB 15.3 billion ($2.19 billion), and Baidu Core operating margin was 19%.

Non-GAAP operating income was RMB 12.8 billion ($1.84 billion), and non-GAAP operating margin was 12%. Non-GAAP Baidu Coreoperating income was RMB 20.3 billion ($2.92 billion), and non-GAAP Baidu Core operating margin was 25%.

Total other loss was RMB 6.6 billion ($955 million), mainly due to loss on equity investment arising from other-than-temporary decline, compared to total other income of RMB 11.8 billion for 2018, which was mainly due to disposal gains from Du Xiaoman and Global DU businesses. In Q4 2015, following a transaction where the Company exchanged shares of its majority-owned subsidiary Qunar for a minority stake in Trip.com, the Company deconsolidated Qunar, recorded its investment in Trip.com at the closing-date market value and recognized a non-cash accounting gain of RMB 24.4 billion. Since then, the market value of Trip.com shares has declined, and the continued low market price in 2019 resulted in the Company recognizing a non-cash impairment loss of RMB 8.9 billion in Q3 2019. In October 2019, the Company sold down its holding in Trip.com, reducing its interest from 19% to 12% of Trip.com's outstanding shares.

Income tax expense was RMB 1.9 billion ($279 million), compared to RMB 4.7 billion in 2018. The decrease in income tax expense was mainly due to lower taxable income from Baidu Core.

Net income attributable to Baidu was RMB 2.1 billion ($296 million), and diluted earnings per ADS was RMB 6($0.80). Net income attributable to Baidu Core was RMB 7.6 billion ($1.09 billion). Non-GAAP net income attributable to Baidu was RMB 18.2 billion ($2.61 billion), and non-GAAP net margin was 17%. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per ADS amounted to RMB 52($7.48). Non-GAAP net income attributable to Baidu Core was RMB 22.8 billion ($3.28 billion), and non-GAAP net margin for Baidu Core was 29%.

Adjusted EBITDA was RMB 18.4 billion ($2.65 billion) and adjusted EBITDA margin was 17%. Adjusted EBITDA to Baidu Core was RMB 25.5 billion ($3.66 billion) and adjusted EBITDA margin for Baidu Core was 32%. 

Free cash flow was RMB 22.0 billion ($3.17 billion). Free cash flowexcluding iQIYI was RMB 18.9 billion ($2.71 billion).

Financial Guidance

For the first quarter of 2020, Baidu expects revenues to be between RMB 21.0 billion ($3.0 billion) and RMB 22.9 billion ($3.3 billion), representing a decline of 5% to 13% year over year, which assumes that Baidu Core revenue will decline between 10% and 18% year over year. The Coronavirus situation in China is evolving, and business visibility is very limited. The above forecast reflects Baidu's current and preliminary view, which is subject to substantial uncertainty.

Conference Call Information

Baidu's management will hold an earnings conference call at 8:15 PM on February 27, 2020, U.S. Eastern Time (9:15 AM on February 28, 2020, Beijing/Hong Kong Time). Dial-in details for the earnings conference call are as follows:

A replay of the conference call may be accessed by phone at the following number until March 6, 2020:

Additionally, a live and archived webcast of this conference call will be available at http://ir.baidu.com.

About Baidu

Baidu, Inc. is a leading search engine, knowledge and information centered Internet platform and AI company. The Company's mission is to make a complicated world simpler through technology. Baidu's ADSs trade on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "BIDU". Currently, ten ADSs represent one Class A ordinary share.

Contacts

Investors Relations, Baidu, Inc.
Tel: +86-10-5992-8888
Email: ir@baidu.com

Safe Harbor Statement

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "confident" and similar statements. Among other things, the outlook for the first quarter of 2020, quotations from management in this announcement, as well as Baidu's and other parties' strategic and operational plans, contain forward-looking statements. Baidu may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including but not limited to statements about Baidu's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: Baidu's growth strategies; its future business development, including development of new products and services; its ability to attract and retain users and customers; competition in the Chinese Internet search and newsfeed market; competition for online marketing customers; changes in the Company's revenues and certain cost or expense items as a percentage of its revenues; the outcome of ongoing, or any future, litigation or arbitration, including those relating to intellectual property rights; the expected growth of the Chinese-language Internet search and newsfeed market and the number of Internet and broadband users in China; Chinese governmental policies relating to the Internet and Internet search providers, and general economic conditions in China and elsewhere. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in the Company's annual report on Form 20-F and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Baidu does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. All information provided in this press release and in the attachments is as of the date of the press release, and Baidu undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

To supplement Baidu's consolidated financial results presented in accordance with GAAP, Baidu uses the following non-GAAP financial measures: non-GAAP operating income (loss), non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP net income (loss) attributable to Baidu, non-GAAP net margin, non-GAAP diluted earnings per ADS, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin and free cash flow. The presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP.

Baidu believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information regarding its performance and liquidity by excluding certain items that may not be indicative of its recurring core business operating results, such as operating performance excluding not only non-cash charges, but also other items that are infrequent or unusual in nature. The Company believes that both management and investors benefit from referring to these non-GAAP financial measures in assessing its performance and when planning and forecasting future periods. These non-GAAP financial measures also facilitate management's internal comparisons to Baidu's historical performance and liquidity. The Company believes these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors in allowing for greater transparency with respect to supplemental information used by management in its financial and operational decision making. A limitation of using these non-GAAP financial measures is that these non-GAAP measures exclude certain items that have been and will continue to be for the foreseeable future a significant component in the Company's results of operations. These non-GAAP financial measures presented here may not be comparable to similarly titled measures presented by other companies. Other companies may calculate similarly titled measures differently, limiting their usefulness as comparative measures to the Company's data.

Non-GAAP operating income represents operating income excluding share-based compensation expenses and amortization of intangible assets resulting from business combinations.

Non-GAAP net income attributable to Baidu represents net income attributable to Baidu excluding share-based compensation expenses, amortization and impairment of intangible assets resulting from business combinations, disposal gain or loss, impairment of long-term investments, fair value change of long-term investments, adjusted for related income tax effects. Baidu's share of equity method investments for these non-GAAP reconciling items, amortization of intangible assets not on the investees' books, accretion of their redeemable non-controlling interests, and the gain or loss associated with the issuance of shares by the investees at a price higher or lower than the carrying value per shares, adjusted for related income tax effects, are also excluded.

Non-GAAP diluted earnings per ADS represents diluted earnings per ADS calculated by dividing non-GAAP net income attributable to Baidu, which is adjusted for accretion for the redeemable non-controlling interests, by the weighted average number of ordinary shares expressed in ADS. Adjusted EBITDA represents operating income excluding depreciation, amortization of intangible assets resulting from business combinations, and share-based compensation expenses. Free cash flow represents net cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures.

For more information on non-GAAP financial measures, please see the tables captioned "Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the nearest comparable GAAP measures."