Chinese internet giant Baidu predicted continued revenue gains in the current quarter after recording 25 per cent growth in Q1, hitting the upper band of a forecast made in February.

The company expects revenue in the current period to be between CNY29.7 billion ($4.6 billion) and CNY32.5 billion, 14 per cent to 25 per cent higher than Q2 2020, with its core business to growing by 20 per cent to 33 per cent.

On its earnings call, CFO Herman Yu said Baidu will continue to invest heavily in sales, R&D and operations to support the rapid growth of its AI-powered business, and expects AI cloud increases to accelerate.

Net profit in Q1 grew from CNY41 million in 2020 to CNY25.6 billion, with revenue of CNY28.1 billion.

Online marketing revenue grew 27 per cent to CNY16.3 billion, which Yu said was driven by 30 per cent growth in the Baidu App.

Non-marketing turnover grew 70 per cent to CNY4.2 billion, with AI cloud sales up 55 per cent to CNY2.8 billion and video streaming platform iQIYI up 4 per cent to CNY8 billion despite a loss of 13.6 million subscribers, closing March with 105.3 million.

Monthly active users increased 58 per cent to 558 million.

R&D expenses rose 15 per cent to CNY5.1 billion.