Income for the three months ending in March reached USD 2.45 billion (15.82 billion yuan), up 31.2 per cent from the same period a year earlier, according to a statement released Thursday, as ads flowed into its search engine.
"We had a terrific start to 2016," Baidu chief executive Robin Li said during a conference call. "This quarter we made notable progress in executing our mission in connecting users with information and services."
Baidu, often referred to as China's version of Google, is investing heavily in services ranging from online payments to online-to-offline transactions, such as food delivery.
Like Google, the Chinese company is spending on research and development to put a driverless car on the road.
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"We believe that the automobile is the next major computing platform," Li told analysts during the call.
"We're on track now to deploy autonomous vehicles powered by Baidu technology in 2018 with production at scale by 2020."
"We are pleased to deliver very strong results for the first quarter, and our integrated online marketing and transaction services platform continued to exhibit strength and momentum," Baidu chief financial officer Jennifer Li said in the statement.
Baidu reported having 663 million monthly active users for March, a nine percent increase from the same month last year.
The transfer of an item as advanced and significant
as a TEL, even if only transferred as a truck chassis known to be capable of modification to a TEL, would require the approval from the highest levels of China's government if not also the People's Liberation Army, they noted.
"Is there any evidence that China or Chinese entities have supplied TELs, or trucks capable of being modified to TELs, for a Pakistani medium-range nuclear ballistic missile? If so, how many? And when did the Administration learn of the possibility that such TELs would be transferred to Pakistan? And of the transfer(s)?" they asked.
"What, if anything, has the Administration done to ensure China halts such cooperation and demands the return of these TELs?What entities in Pakistan and in China were conduits for the transfer of funding involved in this transfer?" the lawmakers asked.