cloud & hyperscalers · Industry Index 11 (rank #114) ·
price: as of 2026-11-04 index: as of 2026-11-04 fundamentals: latest filing 2026-03-17 Reports quarterly (10-Q XBRL)
Baidu is a Chinese search and AI company operating Baidu AI Cloud, the Ernie large-language models, Kunlun AI chips, and Apollo autonomous driving.
Industry exposure 0.5 (Baidu positions as an AI company with AI Cloud, Ernie models, and Kunlun chips, though search advertising still funds much of the business.)
Delayed, end-of-day, aggregate per contract — not a live tape or trade-level flow. Buy/sell side is INFERRED from where each contract's last print sat in the bid/ask spread, not observed order flow. The company-wide side is withheld unless quoted contracts cover at least a quarter of the day's premium, so it can be blank while individual contracts below show a side. Call/put premium is measured across the chain we capture — the 6 nearest expiries within 45 days, not the full option chain — while the table below lists at most 20 flagged contracts, so summing those rows will not reproduce the percentage.
Why flagged:earnings in 12 days
| Date | Contract | Score | Side (inferred)? | OI Δ? | Volume | Vol/OI | Flags |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-04 | $87 PUT | 31 | mid-market · no side | +3 | 160 | 7.6× |
19 smaller flags (under $100000 premium) hidden.
latest session: 1.2× its 13-day baseline
21% calls / 79% puts (by premium)
Price momentum led a bearish call; the other agents split, so conviction reflects the disagreement.
Most voters leaned one way; price momentum dissented. Directional agreement 0.67.
A clear bearish score; conviction 0.42 reflects how strongly the agents agree. Conviction is confidence, not a probability of the move.
Baidu was founded as a search engine business in 2000 and now describes itself as "a leading AI company with strong Internet foundation". Its 2025 revenue was RMB129.1 billion, down 3%, as online marketing revenue fell and cloud revenue grew (20-F); Baidu General Business revenue fell 2% to RMB102.5 billion and iQIYI's fell 7% to RMB27.3 billion. By the second quarter of 2026 (results, 2026-08-18), Baidu Core AI-powered Business revenue of RMB12.5 billion was half of Baidu General Business revenue: AI Cloud Infra grew 50% to RMB7.3 billion, with GPU Cloud revenue up 283%, while Legacy Business revenue fell 23% to RMB10.4 billion and Baidu General Business revenue fell 4% to RMB25.2 billion. The search position is still large by an independent count, at 46.65% of China's search engine market in September 2026 per StatCounter, but it is earning less: online marketing revenue fell in 2024 and 2025, Baidu booked RMB16.2 billion of impairment on its Core asset group in 2025 citing "fluctuations in the external environment, in particular the rapid iteration of AI technology, and changes in our internal operations", and Baidu App's monthly active users went from 679 million in December 2025 to 644 million in June 2026. The growth businesses face strong rivals. IDC, as cited in the 20-F, ranked Baidu AI Cloud first in China's AI public cloud market for 2024, but IDC data reported by KrASIA put ByteDance's Volcano Engine at 49.5% of China's model-as-a-service market in 2025, and Artificial Analysis's leaderboard, as read 2026-10-10, gives the newest ERNIE model it lists an estimated Intelligence Index of 14, against 45 for the latest models from Z AI and Alibaba. Apollo Go runs a fully driverless ride-hailing service and had reached 28 cities by the second-quarter results. Baidu's search moat is real but eroding, and its AI businesses are growing without, as yet, a moat of their own.
Rating: eroding
Baidu's search franchise still leads, but it earns less each year and the company has written part of it down. Its 2025 annual report on Form 20-F (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1329099/000119312526109289/d38065d20f.htm) says revenue from online marketing services "declined in 2024 and 2025, primarily due to our ongoing AI transformation, which impacted the monetization approach, as well as unfavorable macroeconomic conditions", and that "the increasing prevalence of AI-powered search engines and virtual assistants is fundamentally altering user behavior", so that users "may have less need to click on traditional search results or sponsored links". In 2025 it recognised RMB16.2 billion of impairment losses on its Core asset group after a recoverability test it attributes to "fluctuations in the external environment, in particular the rapid iteration of AI technology, and changes in our internal operations", and reported an operating loss of RMB5.8 billion (operating income of RMB10.4 billion excluding the impairment). The decline continued into 2026: the second-quarter results (https://ir.baidu.com/news-releases/news-release-details/baidu-announces-second-quarter-2026-results, 2026-08-18) show what Baidu calls Legacy Business revenue at RMB10.4 billion, down 23% year over year, and the CEO says "our online marketing business remains under pressure". The lead itself is still large by an independent count, with StatCounter putting Baidu at 46.65% of China's search engine market in September 2026. A lead that monetises less each year, and has needed an impairment, is an eroding moat.
Type: network effects
The moat Baidu is losing is a traffic-driven network. The 20-F says it competes for users and customers "on the basis of user traffic, cyber security, quality (relevance) of search (and other marketing and advertising) results, availability and user experience of products and services, distribution channels and the number of associated third-party websites", and that its content ecosystem depends on attracting creators "by leveraging our user traffic and enhance user engagement through the provision of attractive content, so as to create a virtuous cycle". Advertisers use its P4P platform "to bid for priority placement of paid sponsored links and reach users who search for information related to their products or services", and Baidu Union partners carry its search engine and ads on their own properties. AI answers are weakening that loop: the same filing warns that conversational tools risk "reducing traffic to our platforms and diminishing the inventory and effectiveness of our search-based advertising", and Baidu App's monthly active users were 644 million in June 2026 (second-quarter results) against 679 million in December 2025 (20-F).
Leadership: co leader
Baidu leads search by an independent count, but not the AI businesses that now make up half of its core revenue. StatCounter (https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/china, September 2026 figures) puts Baidu at 46.65% of China's search engine market across all platforms, against 21.76% for Bing, and at 60.15% on mobile, though on desktop it shows Bing ahead at 41.27% to Baidu's 28.32%. In AI cloud, the 20-F cites IDC's ranking of Baidu AI Cloud as "the No.1 AI cloud provider for the sixth consecutive year" in China's AI public cloud market for 2024, but that figure is relayed by Baidu and covers 2024, and IDC data reported by KrASIA (https://kr-asia.com/how-bytedances-volcano-engine-holds-nearly-half-of-chinas-maas-market, 2026-05-13) put ByteDance's Volcano Engine at 49.5% of China's model-as-a-service market in 2025. In models, Artificial Analysis's leaderboard (https://artificialanalysis.ai/leaderboards/models, read 2026-10-10) gives ERNIE 5.0 Thinking Preview an estimated Intelligence Index of 14, against 45 for Alibaba's Qwen3.8 Max (0902) and Z AI's GLM-5.3 (max). A clear lead in search alongside a contested AI cloud position and a lagging model family makes Baidu a co-leader rather than a clear leader.
Pricing power: weak
Costs are rising faster than revenue, and Baidu has been cutting model prices. In 2025, per the 20-F, Baidu General Business revenue fell 2% to RMB102.5 billion while its cost of revenues rose 15% from RMB44.8 billion to RMB51.5 billion, "mainly related to development of cloud services", and the filing warns of "downward pressure on our operating margin". Online marketing revenue fell in both 2024 and 2025, and Legacy Business revenue was down 23% year over year in the second quarter of 2026. Baidu says it released ERNIE 4.5 Turbo and ERNIE X1 Turbo "delivering improved performance at significantly lower pricing, making them among the most cost-effective options on the market", and IDC data reported by KrASIA says the model-as-a-service leader Volcano Engine's "per-token price was below the industry average". The one premium claim, that AI-native marketing customers are "willing to pay a premium", is Baidu's own, and that line's revenue was "approximately flat year over year" in the second quarter of 2026.
Curated moat judgment grounded in the cited source. source: sec.gov
Layer: cloud & hyperscalers
Baidu spans several layers of China's AI stack. Its 20-F describes "a full AI stack of four layers, including cloud infrastructure, deep learning framework developed in-house, foundation models, and applications", with AI infrastructure "powered by a diverse mix of domestic and international high-performance computing resources, including our own self-developed AI computing architecture" and its own Baidu AI Chip. It sells GPU Cloud capacity and Qianfan model services to enterprises and the public sector, with a Qianfan model library that includes "leading third-party and open-sourced models" as well as ERNIE, and it funds this largely from online marketing sold to advertisers through search and feed.
Derived from this company's mapped supply-chain edges and its industry layer.
The moat prior voted -0.17 on the long (~6-month) horizon at weight 0.20 — the swarm call there is bearish (score -0.70, conviction 28).
Editorial prior — subjective, not backtested. It is bounded (±0.6), low-confidence, and never votes on short/medium. See exactly how it voted →
Products & services with an editorial market-share band and technical barrier band — qualitative judgments tied to a cited basis, never invented figures.
| Product | Market share | Technical barrier |
|---|---|---|
| Apollo Go robotaxi · Autonomous ride-hailing Autonomous ride-hailing service, fully driverless in its Chinese mainland cities; by the second-quarter 2026 results its global footprint had reached 28 cities and its fleets had accumulated over 350 million autonomous kilometers, including over 240 million fully driverless. | Top 3 Baidu's 20-F (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1329099/000119312526109289/d38065d20f.htm) says "We are the market leader in autonomous driving in China in terms of number of rides Apollo Go completed" and cites an unnamed "well-known research firm" naming Apollo one of two global leaders. No independent ride or market-share figure was read for this profile, so the company's own leader claim is stepped down to top three. | Moderate Driverless service needs local approval city by city: the 20-F says any entity wanting to test or operate autonomous vehicles in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou and Wuhan "must file an application" with a designated local agency, and Baidu has accumulated such permits, including Beijing's first license to test vehicles with no driver or safety operator in December 2022 and, per the second-quarter results, Hong Kong's first permits for fully driverless testing. Against that, the filing says only that it competes "with other autonomous ride-hailing service providers", and warns that operating robotaxi services "may make it difficult to achieve sustained and stable profits". |
| Baidu AI Cloud Infra (GPU Cloud and Qianfan) · AI cloud infrastructure and model services AI infrastructure and platform services for enterprises and the public sector, including GPU Cloud capacity and the Qianfan model-as-a-service platform; AI Cloud Infra revenue was RMB7.3 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 50% year over year, with GPU Cloud revenue up 283%. | Top 3 The 20-F says "Baidu AI Cloud was ranked the No.1 AI cloud provider for the sixth consecutive year, according to IDC's 2024 report on China's AI public cloud market, issued in July 2025." That ranking is IDC's, but it is relayed by Baidu, covers 2024 and was not read at source for this profile. A narrower IDC measure reported by KrASIA (https://kr-asia.com/how-bytedances-volcano-engine-holds-nearly-half-of-chinas-maas-market, 2026-05-13) put ByteDance's Volcano Engine at 49.5% of China's model-as-a-service market in 2025, without giving Baidu a share. The band is therefore stepped down from leader to top three. | Moderate AI cloud takes scale: the 20-F warns that Baidu "may not establish market share sufficient to achieve the scale necessary to achieve our business objectives or recoup costs incurred to build and maintain infrastructure to support our cloud-based services", and its cost of revenues rose on "bandwidth costs, depreciation costs and server custody fees, mainly related to development of cloud services". Against that, the filing names Alibaba Cloud, Volcano Engine, Huawei and Kingsoft cloud as competitors and says telecom providers "have been growing their cloud business", and its own Qianfan platform offers "leading third-party and open-sourced models" alongside ERNIE. |
| Baidu Search and Baidu App (online marketing) · Search and feed advertising Search and feed on Baidu App and Baidu's other properties, monetised mainly through P4P online marketing, where advertisers bid for priority placement of paid sponsored links; Baidu App had 644 million monthly active users in June 2026. | Leader StatCounter's Global Stats (read 2026-10-10, September 2026 figures) put Baidu at 46.65% of China's search engine market across all platforms, ahead of Bing at 21.76%, YANDEX at 14.98% and Haosou at 12.26%, and at 60.15% on mobile (https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/mobile/china). The same tracker shows Bing ahead on desktop, at 41.27% to Baidu's 28.32% (https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/desktop/china). These are shares of search-engine use only; no share of China's online advertising market was read, so the leader band applies to search, not to search and feed advertising as a whole. | Moderate The 20-F lists the bases of competition as user traffic, the relevance of results, distribution channels and "the number of associated third-party websites", all of which favour the incumbent. But it also warns that AI-powered search engines and virtual assistants are "fundamentally altering user behavior" and that "the emergence of new advertising platforms and formats could disrupt the existing online marketing ecosystem"; online marketing revenue fell in 2024 and 2025; and Baidu recognised RMB16.2 billion of impairment on its Core asset group in 2025. |
| ERNIE foundation models · Foundation models Baidu's in-house ERNIE family, including the ERNIE 4.5 series, open-sourced in June 2025, and ERNIE 5.0, its first native omni-modal model, unveiled in November 2025 and updated in January 2026; served through Qianfan and used across Baidu's own products. | Unknown No source read gives ERNIE a usage or revenue share. The independent capability ranking is unfavourable: Artificial Analysis's models leaderboard (read 2026-10-10) shows ERNIE 5.0 Thinking Preview at an Intelligence Index of 14, with an asterisk (the page's underlying data marks the score as estimated), against 45 for Z AI's GLM-5.3 (max) and Alibaba's Qwen3.8 Max (0902), 44 for Kimi K3 (max) and 58 for the top-ranked Claude Opus 5.5 (max with fallback). OpenRouter's top 20 models by weekly usage, as read 2026-10-10 (usage data through Oct 9, 2026; https://openrouter.ai/rankings), include no Baidu model. | Low The 20-F says Baidu "open-sourced part of our foundation models" and warns that "If competitors release more advanced, more accessible, or more highly favored models, users may migrate away from our platforms." Baidu's own Qianfan platform offers "leading third-party and open-sourced models" alongside ERNIE. |
These charts plot Baidu's reported income statement, cash flow, and balance sheet from its SEC filings through 2026-03-17. Every figure is as-filed XBRL — none of it is an estimate.
Over the reported window, net income at $799.0M in FY2025.
Analyst consensus — third-party estimates from Yahoo Finance, as of 2026-11-02. Not SEC filings and not a TradingPilot forecast. source: finance.yahoo.com
| Period | EPS (est.) | Revenue (est.) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q/E Sep 2026 | CNY 6.59 (CNY 4.58–CNY 10.38) · 15 | CNY 30.6B (CNY 24.9B–CNY 31.8B) · 20 | -2% |
| FY 2026 | CNY 36.51 (CNY 31.74–CNY 47.78) · 22 | CNY 127.3B (CNY 125.0B–CNY 130.2B) · 30 | -1% |
Each figure shows the consensus mean, its (low–high) range where available, and · the number of analysts behind that estimate.
Next report ~2026-11-16.
Our model leans Low-confidence · Neutral on the stock over the medium horizon — a market-direction call, not an earnings forecast. See the Signal tab.
Comparing against peers…
| Institution | Shares | Value | Δ shares QoQ | % of 13F | % shares out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Appaloosa Management (David Tepper) Guru | 1,295,000 | $148.0M | 602,900 | 1.9% | — |
| BlackRock Passive / index | 603,824 | $69.0M | -1,692,654 | 0.0% | — |
| FMR (Fidelity) Passive / index | 557,260 | $63.7M | -1,921 | 0.0% | — |
| ARK Investment Management (Cathie Wood) Guru | 301,934 | $34.5M | -818,397 | 0.2% | — |
| State Street Passive / index | 80,439 | $9.2M | -6,024 | 0.0% | — |
TradingPilot-computed columns (% of 13F, % shares out) are derived from as-filed 13F values; only name, shares and value are as-filed.
Investing.com · 2026-10-13 · regulation
Nvidia shipped 678,000 AI accelerators in China from January through June, down 44% from a year earlier, cutting its share of China's data-center AI chip market to 34%, according to an IDC report seen by Reuters. Huawei shipped 572,000 units for a 28% share, while Alibaba's T-Head held 7% and Baidu's Kunlunxin 4%.
Dimsum Daily · 2026-10-13 · product
Baidu's Apollo Go will run Hong Kong's first community public trial of autonomous cars in Tung Chung for 14 days from October 21 to November 3, after the Transport Department backed the scheme. Six hundred free ride tickets will host up to 1,200 people on a roughly 5.1-kilometre loop, with a backup operator aboard each vehicle.
Google News: Baidu · 2026-07-16 · partnership
Apple's AI tools have been cleared for launch in China with integration from Alibaba and Baidu.
Google News: Baidu · 2026-07-15 · funding
Baidu's chip subsidiary Kunlun Core is pursuing a $50 billion Hong Kong IPO.
2026-11-03 PR Newswire Tech · What's Next for Baidu, Inc. Shareholders After 12.73% Stock Drop? Glancy Prongay Wolke & Rotter LLP Explains Securities Fraud Class Action Lead Plaintiff Deadline
2026-11-02 PR Newswire Tech · What Does Baidu, Inc.'s 12.73% Stock Drop Mean for Investors? The Law Offices of Howard G. Smith Outlines Securities Fraud Class Action Lead Plaintiff Deadline
2026-10-31 PR Newswire Tech · Baidu, Inc. Deadline: BIDU Investors with Losses in Excess of $100K Have Opportunity to Lead Baidu, Inc. Securities Fraud Lawsuit
2026-10-28 Yahoo Finance: BIDU · Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) is Attracting Investor Attention: Here is What You Should Know
2026-10-27 Yahoo Finance: BIDU · Baidu to Report Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results on November 16, 2026
2026-10-27 PR Newswire Tech · BIDU Investors Have Opportunity to Lead Baidu, Inc. Securities Fraud Lawsuit
2026-10-23 Yahoo Finance: BIDU · Here's Why Baidu Inc. (BIDU) Fell More Than Broader Market
2026-10-23 PR Newswire Tech · What Should Baidu, Inc. Investors Know After 12.73% Stock Drop? The Law Offices of Frank R. Cruz Outlines Securities Fraud Class Action Lead Plaintiff Deadline
2026-10-22 Yahoo Finance: BIDU · Baidu Inc. (BIDU) Stock Moves -1.07%: What You Should Know
2026-10-21 Yahoo Finance: BIDU · Baidu (BIDU) Expands Its AI Business, but the Core Revenue Recovery Remains Uncertain
2026-10-21 PR Newswire Tech · Baidu, Inc. Sued for Securities Law Violations - Contact the DJS Law Group to Discuss Your Rights - BIDU
2026-10-19 PR Newswire Tech · BIDU Investors Have Opportunity to Lead Baidu, Inc. Securities Fraud Lawsuit with SBS Law
2026-10-14 PR Newswire Tech · BIDU Investors Have Opportunity to Lead Baidu, Inc. Securities Fraud Lawsuit with SBS Law
2026-10-14 PR Newswire Tech · Baidu, Inc. Sued for Securities Law Violations - Contact the DJS Law Group to Discuss Your Rights - BIDU
2026-10-13 PR Newswire Tech · BIDU Investors Have Opportunity to Lead Baidu, Inc. Securities Fraud Lawsuit
2026-10-09 Yahoo Finance: BIDU · Baidu Inc. (BIDU) Laps the Stock Market: Here's Why
2026-10-07 Business Wire AI · Huawei Cloud and Baidu AI Cloud Coverage Added, Providing Visibility into Opaque China Cloud Market by Liftr Insights
Impact = company-prominence tier (High/Medium auto-assigned by graph centrality/size; Low only on curated minor events), not a magnitude forecast.
| Date | Type | Event | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-16 | earnings | Baidu earnings — Company-confirmed date. confirmed | Medium |
| Date | Event | Impact | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-18 | Baidu earnings confirmed | Medium | EPS miss · +2.2% |
