BEIJING, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm Baidu reported robust revenue growth for 2018 as the company applied AI technologies in more businesses.
Baidu took in 102.3 billion yuan (14.88 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue last year, up 28 percent year on year, while net income attributable to Baidu reached 27.6 billion yuan, surging 51 percent from 2017, according to the company's financial statement released Friday.
"2018 was a pivotal year for Baidu, as we worked on deploying AI technologies beyond search to feed, voice assistant, AI solutions and autonomous driving," said Baidu CEO Robin Li.
Daily active users of the company's flagship mobile app saw a 24-percent year-on-year expansion to reach 161 million by the end of 2018.
The company's DuerOS voice assistant had been installed on over 200 million devices by December 2018, up 45 percent sequentially.
Baidu for the first time disclosed quarterly revenue of its cloud business, which totaled 1.1 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2018, more than doubling the performance for Q4 2017.
Baidu CFO Herman Yu said Baidu's business is diversifying from mobile internet into the smart home, smart transportation, cloud and autonomous driving markets, which will require substantial investments that might bear fruit and accelerate Baidu's revenue growth in the coming years.
Baidu expected its Q1 2019 revenue to be between 23.5 billion yuan and 24.7 billion yuan, up 12 percent to 18 percent year on year.
