Baidu Profit Jumps on Customer Growth
Baidu Inc. said Tuesday its second-quarter net profit nearly doubled from a year earlier as the Chinese Internet search company attracted more advertisers and as marketing customers stepped up their spending, and the company gave a better-than-expected revenue forecast for the third quarter.
Baidu’s earnings have been surging for more than a year as the company has added advertisers and benefited from a new keyword advertising system. It has also continued to eclipse Google Inc.’s share of the local search market since the U.S. company moved its China search engine to Hong Kong last year because of concerns about censorship and hacking in China.
