Baidu.com Inc. (BIDU) 3Q26 preview: Cloud re-acceleration with improving margin; Advertising weakness weighs on near-term profit; Not Rated

We preview Baidu's 3Q26 results, with Baidu Core revenue expected to return positive growth at +1% yoy to Rmb24.8bn, thanks to Cloud re-acceleration driven by AI Cloud Infra which is partially offset by persistent weakness in advertising. Specifically, we expect Cloud revenue (cloud infra + AI applications) to reaccelerate to +57% yoy in 3Q26E mainly propelled by strong AI Cloud Infra. In contrast, we forecast advertising revenue will decline -22% yoy, reflecting a challenging macro backdrop and Baidu's continued prioritization of AI-search user experience over near-term monetization. Despite recovering yoy growth in revenue, we expect Baidu Core non-GAAP OP of Rmb1.7bn (-24% yoy) and Baidu Core non-GAAP NP of Rmb2.1bn (-46% yoy) in 3Q26E, dragged by advertising weakness and incremental AI investment related compute/server costs. We finetune our 2026E-28E revenue estimates by -1%~+1% and cut our 2026E-28E net profit estimates by -9%~-12%. We are Not Rated on BIDU/9888.HK.