China Securities Network (Reporter Wen Ting) Baidu on the 14th released the fourth quarter of the fiscal year ending December 31 and the unaudited financial report for the whole year. Baidu’s total revenue for the fourth quarter was 23.6 billion yuan (US$3.62 billion, up 29% from 18.2 billion yuan in the same period of the previous year; non-GAAP net profit attributable to Baidu was 5.2 billion yuan. (about 804 million US dollars), an increase of 14%. The financial report revealed that iQiyi has submitted a listing application to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. After the listing, Baidu will remain the controlling shareholder of iQiyi.
Data show that in fiscal 2017, Baidu's total revenue was 84.8 billion yuan (about 13.03 billion US dollars), an increase of 20%. In 2017, the net profit not measured in accordance with US GAAP was 22.3 billion yuan (about 3.42 billion US dollars), a year-on-year increase of 68%.
Most importantly, Baidu also revealed the information of iQiyi's independent IPO in the latest financial report. The financial report shows that iQiyi has submitted a listing application to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. After the listing, Baidu will remain the controlling shareholder of iQiyi.
As a veteran company in the network audition industry, iQiyi's capitalization road is full of twists and turns. In February 2016, Baidu Chairman and CEO Li Yanhong and Aiqiyi founder and CEO Gong Yu worked together to issue a privatization offer to Baidu’s board of directors, and planned to acquire an 80.5% stake in iQiyi held by Baidu. About 2.8 billion US dollars. In July of the same year, due to the lack of agreement on the transaction structure and purchase price, Li Yanhong and Gong Yu on behalf of the buyer consortium withdrew the privatization offer.
In 2017, iQiyi also completed a $1.53 billion convertible bond subscription, of which Baidu subscribed for $300 million.
Baidu quoted iResearch data showing that in December 2017, iQiyi's PC-end and mobile-end daily users reached 76 million and 158 million respectively, and the monthly average online time reached 408 billion minutes, a year-on-year increase of 22%.
As an important partner of Baidu Ecosystem, iQiyi and Baidu have been deeply involved in content and data. Baidu’s previously submitted SEC documents show that iQiyi’s revenue in 2016 was 11.283 billion yuan (about 1.625 billion US dollars), an increase of 113.1% from 5.295 billion yuan in the same period of 2015. Revenue growth was mainly due to the growth in online marketing revenue and subscription service revenue.
Baidu once revealed in the analyst's conference call for the semi-annual report in FY2017 that iQiyi contributed a lot to Baidu and contributed more and more traffic. This is one of the important reasons for the year-on-year decline in Baidu's traffic purchase expenditure. As of the first half of 2017, iQiyi has more than 30 million paid users.
According to the news, iQiyi’s IPO plan to go to the US is to raise $1 billion. As of press time, iQiyi has not confirmed this number and said that all Baidu announcements will prevail.
SHAOXING YINGSIPE TEXTILE CO.,LTD , https://www.chinayingsipei.com