Chinese Internet search leader Baidu’s 1st-quarter net income up 165 percent, beating Street

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Baidu 1Q jumps 165 percent, topping forecasts

NEW YORK — China’s Internet search leader Baidu Inc. said Wednesday that its first-quarter net income jumped 165 percent as revenues and advertising customers grew.

The company also announced a 10-for-1 split for its American depositary shares that will be reflected in share prices as of May 12. The ordinary shares are not changing.

Net income in the three months to March 31 rose to $70.4 million, or $2.02 a share.

Revenue grew 60 percent to $189.6 million.

Both measures exceeded the expectation of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who forecast earnings of $1.50 per share on revenue of $180 million.

Baidu’s American depositary shares rose $88.61, or 14.3 percent, to $709.99 in after-hours trading on Wednesday, after climbing $1.27 to close at $621.38 in the regular session.

Baidu said it had about 221,000 active online marketing customers, up nearly 20 percent from a year ago but down 1 percent from the previous quarter.

Revenue per online marketing customer rose 34 percent from a year ago to $864. That figure was up 3.5 percent from the previous quarter.

For the second quarter, Baidu said it expects revenue to rise 67 percent to 70 percent to between $268 million and $274 million.

Baidu got a big boost in China last month after Google Inc. shut its mainland-based search engine to move to the Chinese territory of Hong Kong. Google was protesting government censorship of search results.