Baidu posts third-quarter profit just shy of 3b yuan

Baidu has released its third-quarter financial results, announcing an operating profit of 2.787 billion yuan, up 11 percent year on year. The Chinese search engine giant reported total revenue of 18.253 billion yuan for the third quarter of 2016, with online marketing revenues decreasing by 6.7 percent over last year to come in at 16.49 billion yuan. "We saw further improvements in customer quality in the third quarter as we continued to implement stricter standards for online marketers," Robin Li, Baidu chairman and CEO, said. "During the quarter, the growing popularity of our news feed product helped drive user stickiness in search and across the Baidu content ecosystem. We look forward to further innovating through initiatives such as our digital assistant Duer and autonomous cars, and to bringing new AI-based applications to market."