According to Guosheng Securities' research report, Baidu Group (09888) achieved quarterly revenue of 31.5 billion yuan in Q1 2024, an increase of 1% year-on-year. In Baidu's core business, online marketing advertising revenue is about 17 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3%, and the growth rate has slowed down. The revenue of intelligent cloud and other businesses was 6.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6%. The bank judged that the tightening of IT spending by downstream companies affected the demand for cloud. Non-GAAP net income attributable to mother was 7.01 billion yuan in the quarter, with a non-GAAP net income margin of approximately 22%.
The bank pointed out that the short-term benefits of cloud business for AI are still limited, but the increase in AI is the core focus in the next 5-10 years. In the short term, the cloud business will continue to benefit from the incremental demand brought by AI training. In the medium and long term, the application ecology based on the Wenxin big model is gradually being established. Looking to the future, based on the Wenxin big model, customers will open up greater growth space for Baidu Cloud due to considerations such as reducing inference latency and ecological collaboration.
The bank continued to point out that in July 2024, orders for “Luobu Kuai Pao” in Wuhan surged rapidly, with a peak of more than 20 orders per day per bike, almost reaching the level of taxi drivers' daily orders. In terms of profit path, core factors such as increasing order volume and reducing vehicle costs are being addressed by Baidu through efforts such as developing new generation vehicle models and improving operational efficiency. The bank expects that the Wuhan region will achieve UE equilibrium in the near future, and will replicate this success in other regions in the future.
The bank stated that it expects the company's revenue for 2024-2026 to be 140.1/152.7/166.3 billion yuan, with year-on-year growth of 4%/9%/9%, and non-GAAP net income attributable to mother to be 26.7/27.9/30.8 billion yuan, with year-on-year changes of -7%/+4.5%/+10.1%. Maintain a "shareholding" rating.