HSBC Global Research released a research report on BIDU-SW (09888.HK) +1.550 (+1.609%) Short selling $138.17M; Ratio 20.260% , of which AI LLM "ERNIE Bot" tracked more than 200 million users 13 months after its launch, whereas 85,000 enterprise clients used Qianfan, an AI cloud foundation model platform. The "ERNIE Bot" API is being used 200 million times per day, vs 50 million in 4Q23. Model inference cost was trimmed to only 1% of March 2023 version.
Despite the respectable progress in the AI business, HSBC Global Research remained cautious on the outlook for the company's ads business given the macroeconomic uncertainty. The broker slashed its core ads revenue growth forecast for BIDU-SW from 5% to 2% in 1Q24, and cut its full-year core ads revenue growth forecast to 3% given the slump in verticals such as business services, real estate and automobile.
HSBC Global Research forecast BIDU-SW's revenue to grow 11% in 1Q24. After trimming its ads revenue forecast, the broker cut the adjusted core non-GAAP OPM forecast to 21%. The broker also dropped its profit forecast for BIDU-SW from 2024 to 2026 by 6%-8%, and lowered its H-share TP from $153.1 to $141.3, maintaining a Buy rating.
(HK stocks quote is delayed for at least 15 mins.Short Selling Data as at 2024-04-24 16:25.)
