Baidu Q2 mobile exceeds 10 percent of revenue for first time

Chinese search giant Baidu's mobile revenues have exceeded the 10 percent mark for the first time, reflecting the momentum gained from its various investments including location-based services, apps and online video.

"The adoption of our mobile platform gained momentum and mobile monetization improved. Mobile revenues for the first time accounted for over 10 percent of our total revenues this quarter," said Robin Li, chairman and CEO of Baidu, in a press release on Wednesday.

He noted Baidu had made "solid progress" in the second quarter, adding a record 58,000 online active customer to give a total base of 468,000.

For the second quarter, the firm booked a 4.5 percent dip in net profit at 2.64 billion yuan (US$430.8 million) compared with last year. This was on the back of a 38.6 percent rise in revenue at 7.56 billion yuan (US$1.23 billion) lifted by higher online ad sales.

Expenses from various segments were higher, notably in research and development which rose 73 percent to 941.8 million yuan (US$153.4 million), and marketing and general expenses which increased 84 percent to 1.1 billion yuan (US$175.7 million).

Over the past few months, Baidu has been making acquisitions to position itself to tap the growing mobile Internet usage trend. This include its US$1.9 billion purchase of Chinese appstore 91 Wireless earlier this month, and its acquisition of online video provider PPS Net TV for US$370 million in May.

Baidu currently dominates with about 80 percent of China's search market share but has been facing increased competition from Qihoo 360--an incumbent in the security space. In response, Baidu in June introduced its own antivirus tool throwing itself into direct competition in that arena as well.