Baidu loss widens to 16.5b yuan

China's search engine giant Baidu (9888) widened its third-quarter net loss by 27.4 times to 16.56 billion yuan (HK$20.21 billion) over the last quarter as it booked an 18.9 billion yuan non-cash, mark-to-market loss in long-term investments.

Revenue for the quarter rose 13 percent year-on-year, or 2 percent quarter-to-quarter to 31.92 billion yuan, beating estimates.

Its online video platform iQIYI, whose subscribers reached 104 million in September, generated 6 percent more revenue over last year to 7.6 billion yuan in the period. The Chinese internet giant expects its revenues to be between 31 billion yuan and 34 billion yuan in the fourth quarter, representing a growth rate of 2 percent to 12 percent year on year.

Meanwhile, Bilibili (9626), one of iQIYI's rivals, posted a net loss of 2.68 billion yuan in the three months ended September, which was more than doubled from both a year and a quarter ago.

Its net revenues, however, surged 61 percent from a year ago to a record high of 5.2 billion yuan.