Baidu has overtaken tencent to become the most valuable Internet company in Chin

2012-01-17 11:08:07

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March 24 - baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) closed at $132.58 on Wednesday and has a market capitalization of $46.07 billion, surpassing tencent holdings (HKG: 0700) at the close of trading yesterday to become the no. 1 Internet company in China. It is also the first time in five years that the title has changed hands. Tencent closed yesterday at hk $189.40, giving it a market capitalisation of about $44.6bn.

It rose in early trading Wednesday, closing up 4.32% at $132.58. Shares hit a new 52-week high, with a market cap of $46.07 billion. That compares with a market capitalization of just $870 million when baidu went public in 2005. It has grown nearly 53-fold since then.

Baidu released its financial report for the fourth quarter on February 1, which showed its total revenue of 2.45 billion yuan, up 94% year on year. Net profit was 1.16 billion yuan, up 171.3% year-on-year. Online advertising remains baidu's biggest source of revenue. Baidu's official press release said the growth rate nearly doubled year-on-year, marking the beginning of baidu's second decade of development began to accelerate again.

Tencent is in March 16 released the fourth quarter financial report, data shows the fourth quarter total revenue 5.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 49.8%, a quarter-on-quarter growth of 5.7%, net profit 2.2 billion yuan, a quarter-on-quarter growth of 2.1%, a year-on-year growth of 45.9%. Growth in both revenue and net profit declined, with net profit growing at its slowest pace in three years.

Tencent's shares have fallen for days, falling from hk $220 to a one-month low of hk $189 yesterday, possibly because of the bad news.