Asia Tech Wire (May 16) -- Chinese internet giant Baidu reported a 22% year-on-year rise in net profit for the first quarter of the year, according to its latest financial report.

Baidu released its earnings results for the first quarter of 2024 on Thursday, showing total quarterly revenue of 31.5 billion yuan.

Net income (Non-GAAP) attributable to Baidu was 7.011 billion yuan for the quarter, up 22% year-on-year, beating market expectations, the report showed.

In addition, the report showed that Baidu App reached 676 million monthly active users (MAUs) in March 2024, up 3% year-on-year, with quarterly online marketing revenue of 17 billion yuan.

Baidu is continuing to bet on artificial intelligence with the recent launch of several lightweight large language models (LLMs).