SHANGHAI/BEIJING - A senior executive of China's top search engine, Baidu Inc, forecast its top-line and bottom-line growth rates to moderate over the next year, sending its shares down six percent on Wednesday, said a Reuters report.
Haoyu Shen, Baidu's senior vice-president of business operations, said that after this year's fast-paced growth the company will face tougher comparisons in 2011, although it would seek to grow through acquisitions and new advertising methods.
Baidu's third-quarter net profit more than doubled compared with a year ago, while its revenue almost doubled.
"We had a major re-acceleration this year, and that's due to a few reasons," said Shen, citing the rebound in the Chinese economy, the switchover to its new keyword advertising system and Google Inc's scaling down in China.
He said Baidu's strong performance so far this year was also due to the introduction of its Phoenix Nest keyword advertising system late last year, which was ramped up fully this year.
The system has enabled Baidu to make money from its clients as well as offer more value added services.
Shen said traffic acquisition costs as a percentage of revenue will come in near 10 to 11 percent for 2010.
He declined to give a forecast for next year.
