On May 26, baidu released its unaudited financial report for the first quarter ended March 31, 2022. In the first quarter, baidu achieved a revenue of 28.411 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1%. The net loss attributable to Baidu was 885 million yuan. The net profit attributable to Baidu under non GAAP is 3.9 billion yuan. After the release of the financial report, Robin Lee, the founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, issued an internal letter saying, "we must fully recognize the difficulties of the current situation."
At the same time, he also stressed that "danger and opportunity have always been one and two sides. There are difficulties in the market, so we must also need innovative solutions to solve them. In business history, many great companies, epoch-making innovative products, services and business models emerged in times of economic difficulties."
Robin Lee finally said, "a difficult environment will make waves wash away sand and recognize real kung fu. Only after experiencing wind and rain can we be more resilient."
The following is the full text of the internal letter:
Dear Baidu students,
Today, baidu released its unaudited financial report as of March 31, 2022. In the first quarter of 2022, Baidu's revenue was 28.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1%; Baidu's core revenue was 21.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4%, and Baidu's core net profit (non US GAAP) was 3.8 billion yuan.
During this time, I believe everyone has felt the great challenges brought by the external environment.
We must be fully aware of the difficulties of the actual situation.
At the macro level, under the influence of multiple factors such as repeated epidemics and geopolitical conflicts, the development of economy and enterprises is generally under pressure. The scale of China's digital economy continues to expand, but the growth rate slows down.
At the micro level, Baidu's first growth curve is under pressure, and the proportion of the second and third growth curves in the overall income structure needs to be improved. At the same time, the focus of our attention is often the field with high technical threshold, so we must continue to invest in high-intensity technology R & D. In the first quarter, our core R & D investment reached 5.1 billion yuan, accounting for more than 20% of Baidu's core revenue for six consecutive quarters. In the future, we will continue to practice the R & D investment of "pressure and marathon". This is not an easy way.
But danger and opportunity have always been two sides of the same coin. If there are difficulties in the market, we must also need innovative solutions to solve them. In business history, many great companies, epoch-making innovative products, services and business models have emerged in difficult economic times.
Therefore, we should also strengthen our confidence. As we have said many times, our artificial intelligence strategy and our high-intensity technology R & D investment make us stand on the right side of history and give us the opportunity to play an important role in the process of digitization and intellectualization in China. Especially in the past year, from our own technological development and feedback from all aspects, we can clearly feel the general trend of integrating cloud and intelligence. The combination of cloud computing and intelligence has created greater value, which is different from pure cloud computing in the past and Baidu's unique advantage.
Baidu AI Cloud business grew in balance with its health, and its revenue increased by 45% year-on-year. Baidu AI Cloud has created many benchmark cases of cloud intelligence integration in the fields of manufacturing, water, energy, finance and government affairs, and further improved deployment efficiency and achieved higher quality growth by standardizing innovative AI solutions.
In the field of intelligent driving, we took the lead in realizing the automatic driving service of "no one behind the steering wheel" in Yizhuang, Beijing. On May 20, we were allowed to conduct the unmanned test of open roads in Chongqing, copying the "Yizhuang mode" to more cities; Turnip express had 196000 orders in the first quarter, continuing to consolidate its position as the world's largest automatic driving service provider; Soon, we will also release Jidu's first concept car.
More importantly, automotive intelligence has become an industry consensus. From the perspective of policy, technical reserve, talents and industry status, Baidu's automatic driving is increasingly recognized by the market.
Industry level in-depth learning, open source and open platform, and continuous development of flying oars. As of May 20, 2022, the propeller platform has gathered 4.77 million developers, created 560000 models, served 180000 enterprises, and promoted the vigorous development of artificial intelligence technology, industry and ecology. This year is the key year for the implementation of large model industry. The large model of propeller Wenxin was comprehensively upgraded, 10 large models were released in one fell swoop, and the large model of Wenxin industry was launched. Through the introduction of Baidu Wenxin power grid financial model, PUFA Wenxin and Baidu Wenxin power grid financial model have achieved remarkable results in the field of power grid finance.
The cooperation between propeller and hardware partners is also deepening year by year. At present, with 22 domestic and foreign hardware manufacturers, including Baidu Kunlun core, Huawei shengteng, Intel and NVIDIA, there are more than 30 chips / IPS suitable for flying oars, covering all mainstream chips at home and abroad, so as to help enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency to the greatest extent.
Under the intelligent blessing, baidu mobile ecology is more resilient. Baidu app lived 632 million months in March this year, a year-on-year increase of 13%, and the proportion of daily login users reached 83%.
I have always believed that a good governance structure is the inexhaustible driving force for the sustainable development of enterprises. We continue to improve corporate governance and ESG management system, adhere to business ethics and improve the anti risk ability of enterprises in an all-round way.
We not only pay attention to our own development, but also grow together with the industry and society: for the fourth consecutive year, we have ranked first in China in terms of AI patent applications and authorizations; We officially announced that we will achieve the goal of carbon neutrality at the operational level of the group by 2030, and work with ecological partners to help "zero carbon growth" with AI; We promise to train 5 million AI talents for the society within five years. At present, more than 2 million have been completed, making continuous contributions to the construction of national strategic scientific and technological forces.
In a difficult environment, the waves will wash away the sand and recognize the real kung fu. And experienced the wind and rain, will be more resilient. In a difficult environment, let's stick to the direction, adhere to the long-term thinking, and exercise our real skills based on market demand and customer demand.
The road is blocked and long, and the line is coming.