Baidu posts 95 per cent increase in Q2 profit

Baidu Inc has reported a 95 per cent increase in second-quarter (April-June) profit. Net income rose to ¥1.63 billion or 4.67 yuan per American depositary receipt, as against ¥837.4 million, or ¥2.4, a year earlier, Baidu said in a statement.

Customers advertised more on Baidu's website with the Beijing-based company adding users and extending its lead over Google Inc in China's search-engine market. Chief executive officer Robin Li, the nation's richest man according to Forbes magazine, is increasing acquisitions to offer new services to meet rising competition from internet rivals, including Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Revenue is expected to be between ¥3.95 billion and ¥4.05 billion over the third-quarter, according to Baidu.

The company accounted for 75.9 per cent of China's search-engine market by revenue in the second-quarter, up from 75.8 per cent in the previous three months, research company Analysys International said. Google's share, on the other hand, dropped to 18.9 per cent from 19.2 per cent.

Google has seen its share in China's search-engine market slump since January 2010, when it said it was no longer willing to comply with Chinese regulation to self-censor web content. The company followed this up by shutting its Google.cn service and redirecting Chinese users to its site in Hong Kong.

According to analysts, the search market was growing very strongly, but Baidu had a lot of non-search initiatives that were rounding out its growth.