Baidu posts quarterly revenue fall despite AI bright spots

BEIJING: Chinese tech giant Baidu logged another fall in quarterly revenue on Thursday, even as its growing artificial intelligence business began gathering speed to balance out losses to its traditional business.

In the past, the Beijing-based internet titan generated much of its revenue from online ads, and has been hit hard by a slump in consumption in the world’s second-largest economy.

It has pivoted to AI to staunch its wounds, but its total revenues of 32.7 billion yuan ($4.8 billion) for the fourth quarter of 2025 still represented a four percent decrease on-year, the third consecutive drop.

Total revenues for 2025 also declined three percent on-year, blamed on a decrease in legacy business that was partially offset by a boost from AI, according to a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

But revenues were up five percent quarter-on-quarter, the company said, “primarily due to an increase in Baidu Core AI-powered Business”.

READ MORE: Baidu says domestic tech will shield AI push from US curbs

“2025 marked a pivotal year as AI became the new core of Baidu,” CEO Robin Li was quoted as saying in the filing.

“As our AI-first strategy takes clear shape, we’re confident in our ability to create lasting value in the AI era.”

In the fourth quarter of 2025, revenue from Baidu’s AI business exceeded 11 billion yuan, accounting for 43 percent of general business revenue, the company said.

In the same period, Baidu’s robotaxi service Apollo Go delivered 3.4 million driverless rides, an increase of over 200 percent on-year.

Cecilia Chan, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, wrote in a recent research note that Chinese tech majors “are set to lift annual capital spending to over $39 billion in 2026, prioritising AI infrastructure, cloud services and overseas expansion”.

In January, Baidu said its chipmaking arm Kunlunxin had filed a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Baidu said at the time the details of the spin-off remain to be finalised, but Kunlunxin would continue as a Baidu subsidiary.

On Thursday the company said the spin-off and separate listing was “progressing”.

Domestic AI chipmakers, including Huawei, Cambricon, Baidu’s Kunlunxin and Alibaba’s T-Head, stand to benefit from China’s push to develop homegrown semiconductors in the wake of US export restrictions on advanced chips.

Meanwhile, US chipmaker Nvidia has yet to confirm future shipments of its H200 AI chips to China, one of the world’s largest semiconductor markets, despite earlier indications from Washington and Beijing that such sales could proceed.