The Chinese search engine provider Baidu announced that its Q1 2010 profits jumped 165 percent year-over-year.
Revenue and net income for the company was also up. Net income rose to $70.5 million and revenue grew 60 percent to $189.6 million.
Baidu revealed that it had 221,000 active online marketing customers, up 20 percent year-over-year. Average revenue per marketing customer was $864 – up 34 percent from Q1 2009 and 3.5 percent from the previous quarter.
Baidu expects revenue to increase to $274 million, up to 70 percent, in the second quarter.
The Associated Press attributes Baidu’s increase in market share in the region to Google shutting down its operations in mainland China. Google refused to comply with the Chinese government’s requests to censor searches in the region.
A recent survey conducted by iResearch found that Google and Baidu held the majority of the Chinese search market, accounting for 94.9 percent of the search requests. With Google forced to operate out of Hong Kong, Baidu’s growing influence may radically alter the search engine optimization (SEO) influence in the region.
