Baidu Flat Despite Strong AI-Driven Q1 As Growth Engine Gains Traction

Shares of Baidu Inc (NASDAQ:BIDU) remained muted in early trading on Tuesday, despite a strong first-quarter (Q1) report.

The quarter marked an "important inflection point" for the company, analyst Fawne Jiang said. Baidu General Business’s AI-driven business contributed more than 50% of total revenue for the first time.

The IQIYI Analyst: Jiang reiterated a Buy rating and price target of $215.

The IQIYI Thesis: The quarter highlighted that AI is "increasingly becoming the company's core growth engine," Jiang said in the note.

Check out other analyst stock ratings.

Baidu Q1 Results

Baidu reported strong quarterly results, with revenues from Baidu General Business growing 2% year-on-year, returning to positive growth after several quarters of decline, the analyst stated. Core AI-powered revenue exceeded 50% of total revenue for the first time, growing 49% year-on-year to RMB 13.6 billion, he added.

AI Cloud Infrastructure remained the key driver, growing 79% year-on-year, while GPU Cloud revenue surged 184%.

"Looking ahead, we believe Baidu's AI and cloud momentum remains sustainable, supported by continued enterprise adoption and expanding monetization across infrastructure and applications," Jiang wrote in the note.

Baidu Outlook

Management expects AI Cloud Infrastructure growth to remain above industry levels, driven by:

• Ongoing demand for compute capacity
• Broader deployment of enterprise AI workloads
• Rising external token consumption through the Qianfan MaaS platform

Baidu is expanding monetization across GPU Cloud, enterprise AI applications, agents, and Robotaxi commercialization, the analyst stated.

He added that the important near-term catalysts are:

• The Kunlun spinoff and IPO (initial public offer)
• The global scaling of Apollo Go
• Hong Kong listing plans

"Given strong structural demand for AI chips, we believe Kunlun can continue driving meaningful value creation for Baidu over time," Jiang further wrote.

Price Action

Shares of Baidu had risen by 0.06% to $137.79 at the time of publication on Tuesday.

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