百度 (BIDU) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Hello, and thank you for standing by for Baidu's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objection, you may disconnect at this time.

您好，感謝您出席百度 2024 年第一季財報電話會議。 （操作員指示）今天的會議正在錄音。如果您有任何異議，您可以此時斷開連接。

I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference, Juan Lin, Baidu's Director of Investor Relations.

現在我想把會議交給今天的會議主持人，百度投資者關係總監林娟。

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Baidu's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Baidu's earnings release was distributed earlier today, and you can find a copy on our IR website as well as on newswire services.

大家好，歡迎參加百度2024年第一季財報電話會議。百度的財報已於今天早些時候發布，您可以在我們的 IR 網站以及新聞專線服務上找到副本。

On the call today, we have Robin Li, our Co-Founder and CEO; Rong Luo, our CFO; and Dou Shen, our EVP in charge of Baidu AI Cloud Group ACG.

今天的電話會議有我們的共同創辦人兼執行長李彥宏；羅蓉，我們的財務長；竇深，我們的執行副總裁，負責百度AI雲集團ACG。

After our prepared remarks, we will hold a Q&A session. Please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. For detailed discussions of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our latest annual report and other documents filed with the SEC and Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

在我們準備好的發言之後，我們將舉行問答環節。請注意，今天的討論將包含根據1995 年美國私人證券訴訟改革法案的安全港條款做出的前瞻性陳述。重大差異。有關這些風險和不確定性的詳細討論，請參閱我們向美國證券交易委員會和香港證券交易所提交的最新年度報告和其他文件。

Baidu does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. Our earnings press release and this call include discussions of certain unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. Our press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to the unaudited most directly comparable GAAP measures and is available on our IR side at ir.baidu.com.

除適用法律要求外，百度不承擔更新任何前瞻性聲明的義務。我們的收益新聞稿和本次電話會議包括對某些未經審計的非公認會計準則財務指標的討論。我們的新聞稿包含未經審計的非 GAAP 衡量標準與未經審計的最直接可比較的 GAAP 衡量標準的調整表，可在我們的 IR 網站 ir.baidu.com 上取得。

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, a webcast of this conference call will be available on Baidu's IR website.

提醒一下，本次會議正在錄製中。此外，本次電話會議的網路直播將在百度IR網站上進行。

I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Robin.

我現在將把電話轉給我們的執行長羅賓。

Hello, everyone. Our business continued to grow in the first quarter. Baidu Core's total revenue increased by 4% year-over-year to RMB 23.8 billion, and the non-GAAP operating margin reached 23.5% an improvement from a year ago. In particular, revenue growth from Baidu AI Cloud accelerated to 12% year-over-year in the quarter while continuing to deliver operating profit on a non-GAAP basis.

大家好。第一季我們的業務持續成長。百度核心總營收年增4%至238億元人民幣，非美國通用會計準則營業利益率較上年同期提升至23.5%。特別是，本季百度人工智慧雲端的營收年增率加速至 12%，同時繼續實現非 GAAP 營運利潤。

2024 is the second year of our march on the Gen AI path. As we solidify our leadership position in foundation models, we are transforming the company from an Internet-centric business to an AI-first business.

2024年是我們在Gen AI道路上進軍的第二年。隨著我們鞏固在基礎模型領域的領導地位，我們正在將公司從以互聯網為中心的業務轉變為以人工智慧為先的業務。

Given that ERNIE is the most powerful LLM in China, we are aggressively pushing the envelope for both our 2C business and 2B business to adopt ERNIE, to provide better user experience, to increase advertiser ROI, to enable developers to write agents and applications to let customers enjoy more effective and more efficient models. While we operate our legacy business in a challenging environment and experience lower revenue growth in the near term, we remain confident that AI will bring us sustained growth in revenue and profit in the long run. We expect our cloud business to accelerate and the [loss] of our robotaxi business to narrow for the rest of the year.

鑑於ERNIE是中國最強大的LLM，我們正在積極推動我們的2C業務和2B業務採用ERNIE，以提供更好的用戶體驗，提高廣告商的投資回報率，使開發人員能夠編寫代理商和應用程式客戶享受更有效、更有效率的模式。雖然我們在充滿挑戰的環境中經營傳統業務，短期內收入成長較低，但我們仍然相信，從長遠來看，人工智慧將為我們帶來收入和利潤的持續成長。我們預計我們的雲端業務將加速成長，而我們的機器人計程車業務的[損失]將在今年剩餘時間內縮小。

We expect mobile business to be soft in the near term and start to recover when Gen AI becomes the new core of our existing products next year. Looking beyond the near term, Gen AI and foundation models will bring us tremendous opportunities, offering a new innovation cycle. Enterprise and individual developers have swiftly transitioned from the fear of missing out on this opportunity to leveraging foundation models like ERNIE to build AI applications. Baidu is well prepared to benefit greatly from this technology transformation. We believe one of the most important long-term opportunities is model inferencing which will be a key growth driver for our AI Cloud revenue in the future.

我們預計行動業務短期內將疲軟，並在明年 Gen AI 成為我們現有產品的新核心時開始復甦。展望未來，Gen AI 和基礎模型將為我們帶來巨大的機遇，提供新的創新週期。企業和個人開發者已經迅速從擔心錯過這個機會的狀態轉變為利用 ERNIE 等基礎模型來建立人工智慧應用程式。百度已做好充分準備，從這項技術轉型中獲益良多。我們相信，最重要的長期機會之一是模型推理，這將成為我們未來人工智慧雲端收入的關鍵成長動力。

In April, ERNIE handled about 200 million API costs daily, a significant jump from around 50 million in December last year. This considerable growth indicates the increasing adoption of ERNIE and points to strong future revenue potential from model inferencing. To accelerate the adoption of ERNIE, we are building a vibrant and healthy ecosystem around it. We believe ERNIE ecosystem will over time, contain millions of applications, especially agents developed by a diverse community of enterprise and individual developers across various industries meeting a wide range of needs in people's everyday life and work. Our large user base in mobile and desktop will enable us to distribute these agents and apps to whoever needs it, whenever appropriate.

4 月份，ERNIE 每天處理約 2 億筆 API 費用，比去年 12 月的約 5,000 萬筆大幅增加。這一顯著的成長表明 ERNIE 的採用率不斷提高，並表明模型推理未來的巨大收入潛力。為了加速 ERNIE 的採用，我們正在圍繞它建立一個充滿活力和健康的生態系統。我們相信，隨著時間的推移，ERNIE 生態系統將包含數以百萬計的應用程序，特別是由跨行業的多元化企業和個人開發者社區開發的代理，滿足人們日常生活和工作中的廣泛需求。我們在行動和桌面領域的龐大用戶群將使我們能夠在適當的時候將這些代理和應用程式分發給任何需要的人。

The anchor of this ecosystem is the ERNIE family of models, including our flagship models, ERNIE 3.5 and ERNIE 4.0. As well as the lightweight models we introduced in Q1. Throughout the quarter, we continued improving ERNIE's efficiency leveraging our unique proprietary 4-layer AI architecture and our strong ability in end-to-end optimization. For example, ERNIE has increased its training efficiency to 5.1x and its inference cost is only about 1% compared to the March 2023 version. To make ERNIE increasingly accessible and affordable, we now offer 3 sets of tools on our MaaS platform.

這個生態系統的支柱是 ERNIE 系列型號，包括我們的旗艦型號 ERNIE 3.5 和 ERNIE 4.0。以及我們在第一季推出的輕量級型號。整個季度，我們利用我們獨特的專有四層人工智慧架構和強大的端到端優化能力，持續提高 ERNIE 的效率。例如，與 2023 年 3 月的版本相比，ERNIE 的訓練效率提高到了 5.1 倍，推理成本僅為 1% 左右。為了讓 ERNIE 變得越來越容易使用和負擔得起，我們現在在 MaaS 平台上提供 3 套工具。

Last quarter, we introduced AppBuilder and ModelBuilder for enterprise and individual developers to develop apps and build models. In April, we took a step further by introducing AgentBuilder, a platform encompassing tools for easily creating AI agents. This is because we envision AI agent will become one of the most important forms of applications powered by Gen AI and foundation models.

上個季度，我們推出了 AppBuilder 和 ModelBuilder，供企業和個人開發者開發應用程式和建立模型。四月份，我們更進一步推出了 AgentBuilder，這是一個包含輕鬆建立 AI 代理的工具的平台。這是因為我們預計 AI 代理將成為由 Gen AI 和基礎模型支援的最重要的應用形式之一。

With the ability to use natural language as the programming language, developers will be able to build AI agents without the need to write a single line of code. Currently, new ERNIE agents are created on our platform every day, and together, they are distributed millions of times per day, serving a wide range of verticals including education, legal, B2B, travel and more.

憑藉使用自然語言作為程式語言的能力，開發人員將能夠建立人工智慧代理，而無需編寫一行程式碼。目前，我們的平台上每天都會創建新的 ERNIE 代理，並且每天的分發量達到數百萬次，服務於教育、法律、B2B、旅遊等廣泛的垂直領域。

All these initiatives derive from our extensive experience and insights in building and running ERNIE, as well as developing AI native applications. We believe that ERNIE's true value will only be realized when numerous applications built on top of it are widely used by users and customers.

所有這些舉措都源自於我們在建置和運行 ERNIE 以及開發 AI 原生應用程式方面的豐富經驗和見解。我們相信，只有當建立在其之上的眾多應用程式被用戶和客戶廣泛使用時，ERNIE 的真正價值才會實現。

I'm pleased to note that ERNIE is extending its influence across smart devices through API. Last quarter, we proudly announced partnerships with renowned smartphone brands such as Samsung China and Honor, assisting them in enhancing their native app experiences using ERNIE. This quarter, we are excited to extend our collaboration with more leading smartphone makers such as Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi, who leveraged ERNIE APIs to elevate user experience.

我很高興地註意到 ERNIE 正在透過 API 將其影響力擴展到智慧型裝置。上季度，我們很自豪地宣布與三星中國和榮耀等知名智慧型手機品牌建立合作夥伴關係，幫助他們使用 ERNIE 增強本機應用程式體驗。本季度，我們很高興能夠與 Oppo、Vivo 和小米等更多領先的智慧型手機製造商擴大合作，他們利用 ERNIE API 來提升用戶體驗。

Moreover, our reach now extends beyond smartphones to include PCs and electric vehicles. ERNIE APIs are now utilized by Lenovo, top PC brand to empower its AI assistant in the default browser of its PCs. Nio, China's leading smart EV manufacturer began using the ERNIE API to enhance the incoming experiences for its vehicles. This broadening of our partnerships into various smart devices opens up ample opportunities for large-scale user adoption, paving the way for ERNIE-enabled applications to become the entry point into the world of Generative AI.

此外，我們的業務範圍現已從智慧型手機擴展到個人電腦和電動車。 ERNIE API 現在被頂級 PC 品牌聯想用來在其 PC 的預設瀏覽器中為其 AI 助理提供支援。中國領先的智慧電動車製造商蔚來開始使用 ERNIE API 來增強其車輛的傳入體驗。我們將合作夥伴關係擴展到各種智慧型設備，為大規模用戶採用提供了充足的機會，為支援 ERNIE 的應用程式成為產生人工智慧世界的切入點鋪平了道路。

In addition to the brands I just mentioned, we have also acquired many notable new customers such as Trip.com, (inaudible) and Singapore Tourism Board.

除了我剛才提到的品牌之外，我們還獲得了許多著名的新客戶，例如 Trip.com（聽不清楚）和新加坡旅遊局。

Another long-term opportunity is in our consumer-facing business. We have been reconstructing all of our consumer-facing products. Our goal is to build our proprietary AI native applications, potentially killer apps for the ERNIE ecosystem. By doing so, we should be able to generate new growth opportunities. For example, after rebuilding with Gen AI and LLMs, Baidu Wenku our one-stop shop for document creation experienced double-digit year-over-year increase in paying users in the first quarter. Penetration of ERNIE for Baidu Search and feed took longer than expected because the user base is in the order of hundreds of millions, and use cases are generally very sensitive to cost and response time.

另一個長期機會是我們面向消費者的業務。我們一直在重建所有面向消費者的產品。我們的目標是建立我們專有的人工智慧本機應用程序，這些應用程式可能是 ERNIE 生態系統的殺手級應用程式。透過這樣做，我們應該能夠創造新的成長機會。例如，在與Gen AI和LLM重建後，我們的文件創建一站式商店百度文庫在第一季的付費用戶同比增長了兩位數。 ERNIE 滲透到百度搜尋和 feed 的時間比預期要長，因為用戶群數以億計，而且用例通常對成本和回應時間非常敏感。

We need a wide range of ERNIE models in different sizes, optimized for different scenarios, for best price performance ratio. After trial and error for a few quarters, we are firming up our strategy. Going forward, we plan to accelerate the launch and adoption of new product features such as Multimodal generative search results, multiround interaction in search and more recently, distribution of ERNIE agents. We are at the forefront globally of this unique technological change, and we are confident in our abilities to innovate. By definition, we are operating in uncharted territory. As always, we want to be flexible to make timely adjustments with evolving consumer needs and how users incorporate new product features in their day-to-day life.

我們需要各種不同尺寸的 ERNIE 模型，針對不同場景進行最佳化，以獲得最佳性價比。經過幾個季度的反覆試驗，我們正在堅定我們的策略。展望未來，我們計劃加速推出和採用新產品功能，例如多模式生成搜尋結果、搜尋中的多輪互動以及最近的 ERNIE 代理分發。我們處於這項獨特技術變革的全球前沿，我們對自己的創新能力充滿信心。根據定義，我們正在未知的領域開展業務。一如既往，我們希望能夠靈活地根據不斷變化的消費者需求以及使用者如何將新產品功能融入日常生活進行及時調整。

Now let me review the key highlights for each business for the first quarter. In the first quarter, AI Cloud revenue reached RMB 4.7 billion, up 12% year-over-year and continued to generate operating profit on a non-GAAP basis. The revenue growth was mainly driven by Gen AI and foundation models.

現在讓我回顧一下第一季各業務的主要亮點。第一季度，人工智慧雲端收入達到人民幣47億元，年增12%，並持續產生非美國通用會計準則（Non-GAAP）營運利潤。營收成長主要由Gen AI和基礎模型推動。

In the first quarter, such revenue accounted for 6.9% of total AI Cloud revenue. Currently, the majority of this revenue is from model training, but revenue from model inferencing has been growing quickly. We believe revenue from Gen AI and foundation models will continue to rise as customer adoption improves. For instance, within our internal cloud revenue Baidu Core, other business groups, such as mobile ecosystem groups and intelligent driving group are increasingly leveraging the power of ERNIE.

第一季度，此類營收佔AI雲總營收的6.9%。目前，大部分收入來自模型訓練，但模型推理收入成長迅速。我們相信，隨著客戶採用率的提高，Gen AI 和基礎模型的收入將持續成長。例如，在我們內部的雲端收入百度核心中，其他業務集團，例如行動生態集團和智慧駕駛集團正在越來越多地利用ERNIE的力量。

As a result, 15% of their payments to the AI Cloud Group are allocated to Gen AI and foundation model. Enterprises to Baidu AI Cloud to train and host their models because they believe we have the most powerful and efficient AI infrastructure for model training and inferencing in China. Compared to our peers, we help enterprises to train model at all sizes on our AI Cloud while also reducing model inferencing cost. This is primarily attributable to 2 reasons.

因此，他們向 AI 雲端集團支付的 15% 的款項分配給了 Gen AI 和基礎模型。企業使用百度人工智慧雲端來訓練和託管他們的模型，因為他們相信我們擁有中國最強大、最高效的模型訓練和推理人工智慧基礎設施。與同業相比，我們幫助企業在人工智慧雲上訓練各種規模的模型，同時也降低了模型推理成本。這主要有兩個原因。

Number one, our self-developed 4-layer AI architecture has allowed us to innovate and optimize at each layer, enabling continuous efficiency gain. And number two, we have superior capabilities and insights in GPU cluster management. Leveraging our technical expertise, we can now integrate GPUs from various vendors into a unified computing cluster to train an LLM.

第一，我們自主研發的四層AI架構讓我們能夠在每一層進行創新與優化，以實現持續的效率提升。第二，我們在 GPU 叢集管理方面擁有卓越的能力和洞察力。利用我們的技術專業知識，我們現在可以將不同供應商的 GPU 整合到統一的計算集群中來訓練法學碩士。

Our platform has demonstrated very high efficiency with this setup on a GPU cluster that is composed of entree even thousands of GPUs. This is an important breakthrough because of the limited availability of imported GPUs.

我們的平台在由主甚至數千個 GPU 組成的 GPU 叢集上展示了非常高的效率。由於進口 GPU 的可用性有限，這是一個重要的突破。

Another growth driver for AI Cloud is cross-selling of our CPU cloud services to our GPU cloud customers. With the high recognition of our GPU cloud among existing and new customers, we have seen customers increasingly switch more and more of their CPU cloud usage to Baidu. And earlier on the MaaS side, we took many initiatives to make the ERNIE family of models increasingly affordable and efficient than open-sourced models.

AI 雲端的另一個成長動力是向 GPU 雲端客戶交叉銷售我們的 CPU 雲端服務。隨著我們的GPU雲端在現有客戶和新客戶中的高度認可，我們看到客戶越來越多地將CPU雲端使用轉向百度。早些時候，在 MaaS 方面，我們採取了許多舉措，使 ERNIE 系列模型比開源模型更加經濟實惠和高效。

Here are some highlights for this quarter. We have expanded and enhanced our ERNIE model portfolio, offering a total of 3 lightweight LLMs and 2 test-specific LLMs ModelBuilder. This model helps enterprises and professional developers balance model performance with cost in ERNIE to reach a broader audience for model development.

以下是本季的一些亮點。我們擴展並增強了 ERNIE 模型組合，總共提供 3 個輕量級 LLM 和 2 個特定於測試的 LLM ModelBuilder。此模型可協助企業和專業開發人員在 ERNIE 中平衡模型效能與成本，以吸引更廣泛的模型開發受眾。

In addition, our mixture of experts or MOE approach can position a user query into distinct tasks, assigning the most suitable models to handle each task and use ERNIE 3.5 or 4.0 only for the most complex tasks. This approach allows for faster responses and lower inferencing cost, while maintaining similar performance level to using more models.

此外，我們的專家或 MOE 混合方法可以將使用者查詢定位到不同的任務中，分配最合適的模型來處理每個任務，並僅對最複雜的任務使用 ERNIE 3.5 或 4.0。這種方法可以實現更快的反應和更低的推理成本，同時保持與使用更多模型相似的效能水準。

Last quarter, we introduced AppBuilder to develop (technical difficulty) throughout the quarter, we continued in reaching and refining the tools for AppBuilder, enabling developers to easily create AI native apps in just 3 steps on our platform. With the launch of AgentBuilder in April, anyone can create an AI agent with just a few sentences on Baidu. Overall, we remain confident in the strong for our AI Cloud revenue, and we aim to continue generating operating profit on a non-GAAP basis.

上個季度，我們引進了AppBuilder進行開發（技術難度），整個季度我們不斷對AppBuilder的工具進行觸達和完善，讓開發者在我們的平台上只需3步即可輕鬆創建AI原生應用。隨著4月AgentBuilder的推出，任何人都可以在百度上用幾句話創建一個AI代理。總體而言，我們對人工智慧雲端收入的強勁仍然充滿信心，我們的目標是繼續在非公認會計原則的基礎上產生營業利潤。

Mobile ecosystem has continued to deliver healthy margins and strong free cash flow. In the first quarter, our online marketing revenue grew by 3% year-over-year. Revenue growth was impacted by a challenging macro environment. At the same time, we have been pushing hard to transform the user experience from a traditional mobile product to Generative AI experience. This transition is ongoing and monetization has not yet started.

行動生態系統持續提供健康的利潤率和強勁的自由現金流。一季度，我們的網路行銷收入較去年同期成長3%。收入成長受到充滿挑戰的宏觀環境的影響。同時，我們一直在努力推動使用者體驗從傳統行動產品轉向生成式人工智慧體驗的轉變。這種轉變正在進行中，貨幣化尚未開始。

We all need to leverage ERNIE to reconstruct our monetization system for better conversion and efficiency gain. During the quarter, we further enhanced our ad targeting capabilities and scaled up real-time ad generation. These efforts resulted in an improvement in conversion and generated incremental revenue. ERNIE agents stand for a long-term opportunity for monetization upgrade too.

我們都需要利用ERNIE來重建我們的貨幣化系統，以獲得更好的轉換和效率增益。本季度，我們進一步增強了廣告定位能力並擴大了即時廣告產生規模。這些努力提高了轉換率並增加了收入。 ERNIE代理商也代表著貨幣化升級的長期機會。

Recently, we have seen not only brand advertisers, but also SMEs gradually adopting ERNIE agents. We have designed this agents for SMEs as virtual storefront and service desk, serving consumers around the clock. We believe that the use of agents can improve and ease sell-through rate, enhance their productivity and expand their reach among users. This will be an important step for us to transform our traditional CPC model to a significantly more efficient CPS model. And meanwhile, enhancing user experience on Baidu.

最近，我們不僅看到品牌廣告商，連中小企業也逐漸採用ERNIE代理商。我們為中小企業設計了這個代理商作為虛擬店面和服務台，全天候為消費者服務。我們相信，使用代理商可以提高和緩解銷售率，提高他們的生產力並擴大他們在用戶中的影響力。這將是我們將傳統的 CPC 模式轉變為效率顯著提高的 CPS 模式的重要一步。同時，提升百度用戶體驗。

Going forward, I believe greater opportunities will arise from AI native apps, particularly for Gen AI-enabled search. Gen AI complements traditional search, expanding the total addressable market. Since Q2 last year, we have been reconstructing Baidu Search with ERNIE. Now more and more search results are generated by ERNIE in a growing variety of formats like text, image, third-party links, point of interest and [citation]. These results [yearly] are produced in real time to directly address users' questions and problems. By doing so, we have improved and will continue to enhance the search experience which is crucial for increasing the usage of Baidu Search. While user feedback on this product and feature renovations, has been encouraging. It is important to note that we are still in the early stages of reconstructing Baidu Search with ERNIE. This process will likely take time given that Baidu Search has a history spanning over 20 years and user behavior will evolve, gradually.

展望未來，我相信人工智慧原生應用程式將帶來更大的機會，特別是對於支援人工智慧的搜尋。 Gen AI 補充了傳統搜索，擴大了整個潛在市場。從去年第二季開始，我們就和ERNIE一起重構百度搜尋。現在，ERNIE 產生的搜尋結果的格式越來越多樣化，例如文字、圖像、第三方連結、興趣點和[引用]。這些結果[每年]即時生成，以直接解決用戶的疑問和問題。透過這樣做，我們已經並將繼續增強搜尋體驗，這對於提高百度搜尋的使用率至關重要。雖然用戶對產品和功能革新的回饋一直令人鼓舞。值得注意的是，我們仍處於使用 ERNIE 重構百度搜尋的早期階段。鑑於百度搜尋已有 20 多年的歷史，而且使用者行為會逐漸演變，這個過程可能需要時間。

Overall, I believe that search will be one most likely killer app in the Gen AI era and we are on the right trajectory to capitalize on this potential. I mentioned ERNIE agents as an important opportunity for monetization. With newly introduced AgentBuilder, creators, publishers and service providers will find it increasingly easy to build on Baidu. It is key to enhancing Baidu's content offerings and ultimately provide an AI native user experience on our platform.

總的來說，我相信搜尋將成為新一代人工智慧時代最有可能的殺手級應用程序，我們正走在利用這一潛力的正確軌道上。我提到 ERNIE 代理是一個重要的貨幣化機會。透過新推出的 AgentBuilder，創作者、出版商和服務提供者將發現在百度上進行建置變得越來越容易。它是增強百度內容產品並最終在我們的平台上提供人工智慧原生用戶體驗的關鍵。

Moving on to Intelligent Driving. We believe Apollo Go stands as the largest autonomous ride-hailing service provider globally, measured by the ride provided to the public. In the first quarter, Apollo Go offered about 826,000 rides to the public, marking a 25% year-over-year increase. In April, the total number of ride surpassed 6 million. We are continuing to move forward -- move towards achieving unit economics breakeven for Apollo Go. To make this happen, our strategy is to reach UE breakeven in key regions and then replicate the success in other regions.

轉向智能駕駛。我們相信，以向大眾提供的乘車服務來衡量，Apollo Go 是全球最大的自動駕駛叫車服務提供者。第一季度，Apollo Go 向公眾提供了約 826,000 次乘車服務，年增 25%。 4月份，總出行人次突破600萬人次。我們正在繼續前進——努力實現 Apollo Go 的單位經濟效益盈虧平衡。為了實現這一目標，我們的策略是在關鍵地區實現用戶盈虧平衡，然後在其他地區複製成功。

To reach the regional breakeven point, we are focusing on scaling up fully [driverless] ride-hailing service and enhance the utilization of each field. Wuhan, Apollo Go's largest regional operations is progressing towards this goal. In Wuhan, Apollo Go is gradually becoming an integral part of the city's transportation network.

為了達到區域損益平衡點，我們的重點是擴大完全[無人駕駛]乘車服務並提高各個領域的利用率。武漢，Apollo Go最大的區域運作正在朝著這一目標邁進。在武漢，Apollo Go正逐漸成為城市交通網絡中不可或缺的一部分。

Apollo Go more than doubled its operational area from a quarter ago, serving a population of over 7 million and achieving the remarkable milestone of crossing Yangtze River with fully driverless vehicles as part of its expansion. Moreover, our vehicles started to operate 24/7 in Wuhan in early March, further expanding Apollo Go's reach and improving the vehicle utilization. All these progresses have led to the rapid growth of fully driverless ride. In Q1, the rides provided by fully driverless vehicles accounted for over 55% of total ride in Wuhan, which is up from 45% in the fourth quarter last year. The figure continues to rise, exceeding 70% in April, with expectations of sustained rapid growth ahead and reaching 100% in the coming quarters.

Apollo Go 的營運面積比一個季度前擴大了一倍多，服務人口超過 700 萬，並在其擴張過程中實現了使用完全無人駕駛車輛穿越長江的非凡里程碑。此外，我們的車輛於3月初開始在武漢24/7運行，進一步擴大Apollo Go的覆蓋範圍並提高車輛利用率。所有這些進步都導致了完全無人駕駛的快速增長。一季度，完全無人駕駛車輛提供的出行量佔武漢總出行量的比例超過55%，高於去年第四季的45%。這一數字持續上升，4月已超過70%，預計未來將持續快速成長，並在未來幾季達到100%。

Looking ahead, we plan to deploy RT6, our [sixth] generation robotaxi in our Wuhan Apollo Go operation this year which will significantly reduce hardware depreciation costs. With the scaling of driverless operations and continuous improvement of cost structure, we believe Apollo Go will achieve operational UE breakeven in Wuhan in the near future. As Apollo Go continues to progress, we will closely monitor efficiency and persist in optimizing the operation of our overall Intelligent Driving business.

展望未來，我們計劃今年在武漢 Apollo Go 營運中部署我們的第六代機器人計程車 RT6，這將顯著降低硬體折舊成本。隨著無人駕駛營運規模的擴大和成本結構的不斷改善，我們相信Apollo Go將在不久的將來在武漢實現營運UE盈虧平衡。隨著Apollo Go的不斷進步，我們將密切監控效率，持續優化整體智慧駕駛業務的營運。

On Auto Solutions, our Apollo self-driving for ASD technology continue to evolve. I mentioned in our last earnings call that Apollo is a global pioneer in the use of visual foundation models in autonomous driving. Now our state-of-the-art autonomous driving solution solely reliant on vision is made available to OEMs.

在汽車解決方案方面，我們的 Apollo 自動駕駛 ASD 技術不斷發展。我在上次財報電話會議中提到，Apollo 是自動駕駛中使用視覺基礎模型的全球先驅。現在，我們向 OEM 提供完全依賴視覺的最先進的自動駕駛解決方案。

ASD can effectively navigate complex, urban environments across over 100 cities in China, with plans to expand in to hundreds of cities in the coming months. This allows us to make advanced autonomous driving attainable across a broad spectrum of passenger vehicles. From high-end to economy models priced as low as RMB 150,000 and it serves as another proof of our technology leadership.

ASD 可以有效應對中國 100 多個城市的複雜城市環境，並計劃在未來幾個月內擴展到數百個城市。這使我們能夠在各種乘用車上實現先進的自動駕駛。從高端到經濟型，售價低至15萬元，這是我們技術領先的另一個證明。

With that, let me turn the call over to Rong to go through the financial results.

接下來，讓我將電話轉給榮，以查看財務業績。

Thank you, Robin. Now let me walk through the details of our first quarter financial results. Total revenues were RMB 31.5 billion, increasing 1% year-over-year. Revenue from Baidu Core was RMB 23.8 billion, increasing 4% year-over-year. Baidu Core's online marketing revenue was RMB 17 billion, 1-7 increasing 3% year-over-year. Baidu Core's non-online marketing revenue was RMB 6.8 billion, up 6% year-over-year, mainly driven by the AI Cloud business.

謝謝你，羅賓。現在讓我詳細介紹一下我們第一季的財務表現。總收入為人民幣315億元，較去年成長1%。百度核心收入為人民幣238億元，較去年同期成長4%。百度核心網路行銷收入170億元，1-7月年增3%。百度核心非線上行銷收入為人民幣68億元，較去年成長6%，主要由AI雲業務推動。

Revenue for iQIYI was RMB 7.9 billion, decreasing 5% year-over-year. Cost of revenue was RMB 15.3 billion, increasing 1% year-over-year, primarily due to an increase in traffic acquisition costs and costs related to AI Cloud business partially offset by the decrease in content costs.

愛奇藝收入為人民幣79億元，較去年同期下降5%。收入成本為人民幣153億元，年增1%，主要是由於流量獲取成本和AI雲端業務相關成本的增加被內容成本的下降部分抵銷。

Operating expenses were RMB 10.7 billion, decreasing 2% year-over-year, primarily due to a decrease in personnel-related expenses and other R&D expenditures, partially offset by the increase in server depreciation expenses and server custody fees, which support Gen-AI research and development inputs.

營業費用為人民幣107億元，年減2%，主要是由於人員相關費用和其他研發支出的減少，但部分被支援Gen-AI的伺服器折舊費用和伺服器託管費的增加所抵消研究和開發投入。

Baidu Core's operating expenses were [RMB 9.4 billion], decreasing 1% year-over-year. Baidu Core SG&A expenses were [RMB 5.4 billion], decreasing 1% year-over-year. SG&A accounting for 19%, 1-9 of Baidu Core's revenue in this quarter compared to 20% in the same period last year.

百度核心營運費用為[94億元]，年減1%。百度核心SG&A費用為[54億元]，年減1%。 SG&A 佔本季百度核心營收的 1-9%，而去年同期為 20%。

Baidu Core R&D expenses were [RMB 4.9 billion], decreasing 1% year-over-year. R&D accounting for 21% of Baidu Core's revenue in this quarter compared to 22% in the same period last year.

百度核心研發費用為[49億元]，年減1%。本季研發佔百度核心營收的21%，去年同期為22%。

Operating income was RMB 5.5 billion. Baidu Core's operating income was RMB 4.5 billion. And Baidu Core's operating margin was 19%, 1-9 and non-GAAP operating income was RMB 6.7 billion. Non-GAAP Baidu Core operating income was RMB 5.6 billion, and non-GAAP Baidu Core operating margin was 23.5%.

營業收入55億元人民幣。百度核心營業收入為人民幣45億元。百度核心的營業利益率為19%，1-9，非公認會計準則營業收入為人民幣67億元。非 GAAP 百度核心營業收入為 56 億元，非 GAAP 百度核心營業利潤率為 23.5%。

Total other income net was [RMB 1.2] billion, decreasing 52% year-over-year, primarily due to a decrease in fair value gain from long-term investments, partially offset by the increase in net foreign exchange gain. Income tax expenses was RMB 883 million compared to RMB 1.2 billion in the same period last year. Net income attributable to Baidu was RMB 5.4 billion, and diluted earnings per ADS were [RMB 14.91]. Net income attributable to Baidu Core was RMB 5.2 billion, and net margin for Baidu Core was [28%]. Non-GAAP net income attributable to Baidu was RMB 7 billion.

其他淨收入總額為[人民幣12億元]，較去年同期下降52%，主要是由於長期投資公允價值收益減少，但部分被外匯收益淨額增加所抵銷。所得稅費用為人民幣8.83億元，去年同期為人民幣12億元。歸屬於百度的淨利為人民幣54億元，攤薄後每股ADS收益為[人民幣14.91元]。歸屬於百度核心的淨利為人民幣52億元，百度核心淨利率為[28%]。非美國通用會計準則歸屬於百度的淨利為人民幣70億元。

Non-GAAP diluted earnings per ADS were RMB 19.91. Non-GAAP net income attributable to Baidu Core was RMB 6.6 billion, and non-GAAP net margin for Baidu Core was 28%. As of March 31, 2024, cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments were RMB 191.8 billion in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short investments, excluding iQIYI were RMB 185.8 billion. Free cash flow was RMB 4.2 billion. Free cash flow, excluding iQIYI, was RMB 3.3 billion. Finally, Baidu Core had approximately 34,000 employees as of [31, 2024]. With that, operator, let's now open the call to questions.

非 GAAP 攤薄後每股美國存託股收益為 19.91 元。非美國通用會計準則歸屬於百度核心的淨利為人民幣66億元，非美國通用會計準則淨利率為28%。截至2024年3月31日，現金、現金等價物、受限現金及短期投資為人民幣1,918億元，現金、現金等價物、受限現金及短期投資（不含愛奇藝）為人民幣1,858億元。自由現金流為人民幣42億元。不包括愛奇藝的自由現金流為人民幣33億元。最後，截至[2024年31日]，百度核心約有34,000名員工。接線員，現在讓我們開始提問。

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Alicia Yap with Citigroup.

（操作員說明）您的第一個問題來自花旗集團的 Alicia Yap。

I wanted to ask, would you be able to quantify, has the AI technology been helping Baidu to improve ad monetization rate. Can management share some feedback on those advertisers of who have adopted the system? In what kind of areas do they see the largest improvement? And are there any areas that can be further enhanced?

我想問一下，你能量化一下，AI技術有沒有幫助百度提高廣告變現率。管理層能否分享一些對採用該系統的廣告商的回饋？他們在哪些領域看到了最大的進步？還有哪些方面可以進一步加強？

Alicia, this is Robin. As you know, our monetization system was the first to benefit from Gen AI, generating several hundred million RMB per quarter in incremental revenue. Since the second half of last year, we have been utilizing ERNIE to upgrade our monetization system, enhancing various aspects of ad technology. This includes improving (technical difficulty) capabilities, refining the auction system, automating creative generation and ad strategy formation for our advertisers. .

艾莉西亞，這是羅賓。大家知道，我們的變現系統是第一個受惠於Gen AI的，每季都會產生數億元的增量收入。從去年下半年開始，我們一直在利用ERNIE來升級我們的變現系統，以增強廣告技術的各個方面。這包括為我們的廣告主提高（技術難度）能力、完善拍賣系統、自動化創意產生和廣告策略形成。 。

Advertisers have seen better conversion and more sales leads. This improvement has motivated advertisers to increase their spending with Baidu. So in the first quarter, AI-related incremental advertising revenue grow on a quarter-over-quarter basis, and we expect this trend to continue. The incremental revenue has helped us mitigate the broader macro weakness and also brought us some time to reconstruct our user product with ERNIE.

廣告商看到了更好的轉換和更多的銷售線索。這項改進促使廣告商增加在百度的支出。因此，第一季度，人工智慧相關增量廣告收入環比成長，我們預期這一趨勢將持續下去。增量收入幫助我們緩解了更廣泛的宏觀疲軟，也為我們帶來了一些時間與 ERNIE 一起重建我們的用戶產品。

As I emphasized in my opening remarks, we believe ERNIE offers a significant long-term [capability] for our online marketing business. Agents function as virtual or domains. Advertisers can establish their online presence and interact with potential customers using natural language through multiround conversations. With the introduction of AgentBuilder, advertisers can easily create customized ERNIE agents. When advertisers express their intentions to this agent, they can more effectively achieve their goals, whether it's helping potential customers understand their products or improving customer service quality. Agents can also help enrich our content offering and improve user experience on Baidu.

正如我在開場白中所強調的那樣，我們相信 ERNIE 為我們的線上行銷業務提供了重要的長期[能力]。代理充當虛擬或域。廣告商可以建立線上形象，並透過多輪對話使用自然語言與潛在客戶互動。隨著AgentBuilder的推出，廣告商可以輕鬆創建客製化的ERNIE代理程式。當廣告主向該代理商表達他們的意圖時，他們可以更有效地實現他們的目標，無論是幫助潛在客戶了解他們的產品還是提高客戶服務品質。代理商還可以幫助豐富我們的內容並改善百度的用戶體驗。

While still in with the ERNIE stage, ERNIE agents have helped some advertisers achieve better ROIs. For example, we have a customer in online education. They used AgentBuilder to create AI agent, injecting it with key insights like product introduction and subject matter expertise. Well, continually providing feedback for refinement. This agent has significantly enhanced the company's online customer service by offering round-the-clock high-quality consultations. The adoption of ERNIE agent lead to a 20% increase in ad conversion rates for this online education company. I think this is just the beginning. We believe agent will be a major form of content and services in the new AI era. We will continue to improve the capabilities of ERNIE agent.

雖然仍處於 ERNIE 階段，ERNIE 代理商已經幫助一些廣告商實現了更好的投資報酬率。例如，我們有一個線上教育客戶。他們使用 AgentBuilder 創建 AI 代理，為其註入產品介紹和主題專業知識等關鍵見解。嗯，不斷提供回饋以進行改進。該代理商透過提供全天候的高品質諮詢，顯著增強了公司的線上客戶服務。採用 ERNIE 代理商後，這家線上教育公司的廣告轉換率提高了 20%。我認為這只是一個開始。我們相信Agent將成為新AI時代內容和服務的主要形式。我們將持續提升ERNIE代理的能力。

Agents will not only elevate user experience, both conversion and ROI for advertisers, but also over time, foster increase in transactions directly generated on our platform. This shift should help us to transform our traditional CPC model into a more efficient CPS model.

代理商不僅會提升廣告主的使用者體驗、轉換率和投資報酬率，而且隨著時間的推移，還會促進我們平台上直接產生的交易量的增加。這種轉變應該有助於我們將傳統的 CPC 模式轉變為更有效率的 CPS 模式。

Your next question comes from Gary Yu with Morgan Stanley.

您的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Gary Yu。

I have a question regarding AI Cloud business. How has the price cut initiated by some of your peer companies affected Baidu AI Cloud business? And how should we think about the cloud revenue profitability as competition heats up? And also, how should we -- what should be the sustainable level of cloud growth outlook going forward?

我有一個關於AI Cloud業務的問題。部分同業公司的降價對百度AI雲端業務有何影響？隨著競爭的加劇，我們該如何看待雲端收入的獲利能力？此外，我們應該如何－未來雲端成長前景的可持續水準應該是多少？

Yes, Gary, this is Dou. As we have already mentioned, Gen AI and foundation models are transforming the cloud industry from a general purpose computing to AI computing. So this shift is reshaping the competitive landscape within the cloud industry presenting us with the valuable opportunity to establish ourselves as a leader in AI cloud. So we believe we offered China's most efficient AI infrastructure and the most advanced MaaS platform for our model training and inference. As a result, more and more enterprises are choosing us for our model training, fine-tuning and AI native app development on our public cloud. This increase in demand has significantly boosted our AI Cloud revenue.

是的，加里，這是竇。正如我們已經提到的，Gen AI和基礎模型正在將雲端產業從通用運算轉變為人工智慧運算。因此，這種轉變正在重塑雲端產業內的競爭格局，為我們提供了確立人工智慧雲端領導者地位的寶貴機會。因此，我們相信我們為我們的模型訓練和推理提供了中國最高效的人工智慧基礎設施和最先進的 MaaS 平台。因此，越來越多的企業選擇我們在公有雲上進行模型訓練、微調和人工智慧原生應用程式開發。需求的成長顯著增加了我們的人工智慧雲端收入。

Actually, since the second quarter -- the second half of last year, so our AI Cloud revenue growth has started to accelerate from a year-over-year decline in the third quarter to an 11% increase in the fourth quarter last year, and then further accelerated to 12% in the first quarter of this year. So the revenue acceleration was supported by 2 main factors.

實際上，從第二季度——去年下半年開始，所以我們的AI雲端營收成長就開始加速，從第三季的同比下降到去年第四季的11%的成長，並且隨後今年一季度進一步加速至12%。因此，收入加速受到兩個主要因素的支持。

The incremental revenue directly generated by Gen AI and foundation models and also the new opportunities they brought to us to our legacy cloud business. So as Robin just mentioned, in the first quarter of this year, revenue from Gen AI and foundation models accounts for 6.9% of our AI Cloud revenue. And then our traditional CPU cloud businesses who are capitalizing on the opportunities presented by Gen AI and foundation models, both factors were important growth drivers of our AI Cloud.

Gen AI和基礎模型直接產生的增量收入，以及它們為我們的傳統雲端業務帶來的新機會。所以如Robin剛才提到的，今年第一季度，Gen AI和基礎模式的營收占我們AI Cloud營收的6.9%。然後我們的傳統CPU雲端業務正在利用Gen AI和基礎模型帶來的機會，這兩個因素都是我們AI雲的重要成長動力。

On a separate note, while smart transportation business remained subdued, its impact on overall AI Cloud business in Q1 was substantially smaller than the previous quarters. So overall, we expect our AI Cloud to continue benefiting from the [mega] trend, maintaining a strong revenue growth momentum in the upcoming quarters.

另一方面，雖然智慧交通業務依然低迷，但對第一季整體人工智慧雲端業務的影響遠小於前幾季。因此，總體而言，我們預計我們的人工智慧雲端將繼續受益於[大]趨勢，在未來幾季保持強勁的營收成長動能。

On the profit side, Baidu AI Cloud continued to generate non-GAAP operating profit. As we have seen in previous quarters, we are committed to a sustainable and healthy revenue growth. During the quarter, we maintained our focus on achieving high-quality revenue growth by scaling down low-margin business.

在利潤方面，百度人工智慧雲端持續產生非公認會計準則營業利潤。正如我們在前幾個季度所看到的，我們致力於實現可持續、健康的收入成長。本季度，我們繼續專注於透過縮減低利潤業務來實現收入的高品質成長。

Regarding the business of the Gen AI and foundation models, the market is still at very early stage. So our focus remains on educating the market and broadening our footprint across more enterprises.

對於Gen AI和基礎模型的業務，市場仍處於非常早期的階段。因此，我們的重點仍然是教育市場並擴大我們在更多企業中的足跡。

Looking into the long run, so we expect the normalized margin for Gen AI and foundation models related business to improve further and to be higher than our traditional cloud business.

從長遠來看，我們預計 Gen AI 和基礎模型相關業務的標準化利潤率將進一步改善，並高於我們的傳統雲端業務。

Regarding the change of pricing policies of some competitors you just mentioned, right, it is actually pretty common for our cloud vendors to address their pricing for certain products. Now this is a trend we have observed multi times in the past. Given that our cloud offerings has expanded beyond the traditional CPU cloud to a high-value AI products and services, so the industry changes on CPU cloud pricing has a minimum impact on the development of our AI Cloud.

關於你剛才提到的一些競爭對手的定價政策的變化，對，我們的雲端廠商對某些產品的定價實際上是很常見的。這是我們過去多次觀察到的趨勢。鑑於我們的雲端產品已從傳統的CPU雲擴展到高價值的AI產品和服務，因此CPU雲端定價的產業變化對我們AI雲的發展影響最小。

Actually, for our cloud platform services by leveraging our unique proprietary 4-layer AI architecture and our strong ability in the end-to-end optimization, we have lowered ERNIE's inference cost to only 1% of the -- varying in March last year. This May, ERNIE handles about 200 million API costs or approximately 250 billion tokens daily. We are confident that the ERNIE's expanding adoption will continue to enhance its performance, boosting efficiency and then further reduce costs. It's also important to evaluate present performance ratio for different models at different workloads rather than just focusing solely on some annual superficial prices. So we believe our start-of-the-art AI infrastructure and advanced MaaS platform delivers the best value to our customers.

實際上，對於我們的雲端平台服務，利用我們獨特的專有的四層人工智慧架構和強大的端到端優化能力，我們已經將 ERNIE 的推理成本降低到了去年 3 月的 1%。今年 5 月，ERNIE 每天處理約 2 億個 API 成本或約 2,500 億個代幣。我們相信，ERNIE 的廣泛採用將持續增強其性能、提高效率，進而進一步降低成本。評估不同模型在不同工作負載下的當前性能比也很重要，而不是只關註一些年度表面價格。因此，我們相信我們最先進的人工智慧基礎設施和先進的 MaaS 平台可以為我們的客戶帶來最大的價值。

Looking forward, leveraging our strong AI capabilities, we aim to continuously attract new customers and encouraging existing ones to increase their spending on Baidu AI Cloud. At the same time, we aim to consistently generate positive non-GAAP operating profit.

展望未來，利用我們強大的人工智慧能力，我們的目標是不斷吸引新客戶並鼓勵現有客戶增加在百度人工智慧雲端上的支出。同時，我們的目標是持續產生正的非公認會計準則營業利潤。

Your next question comes from Alex Yao with JPMorgan.

您的下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Alex Yao。

Given the chip shortage in China, how does Baidu maintain its commitment to delivery differentiated value while enhancing the leading advantage in [LLM] technology in China.

在中國晶片短缺的情況下，百度如何保持其提供差異化價值的承諾，同時增強在中國[LLM]技術的領先優勢。

Alex, we do think very differently in this aspect. We're taking an application-driven approach for our AI push. For example, solving all the high [school] MaaS problems using the most advanced LLM may not be the highest priority at this time. While generating convincing reasons for users to buy the right products, it's more important in a lot of applications. So with that in mind, we are taking advantage of our unique 4-layer AI tech stack to optimize the cost and performance of ERNIE models. And we make sure customers and developers can easily build applications using tools like AgentBuilder, AppBuilder and ModelBuilder.

亞歷克斯，我們在這方面的想法確實非常不同。我們正在採用應用程式驅動的方法來推動人工智慧。例如，使用最先進的 LLM 解決所有高中 MaaS 問題可能不是目前的最高優先事項。雖然為用戶提供令人信服的理由來購買正確的產品，但在許多應用中更重要。因此，考慮到這一點，我們正在利用我們獨特的 4 層 AI 技術堆疊來優化 ERNIE 模型的成本和效能。我們確保客戶和開發人員可以使用 AgentBuilder、AppBuilder 和 ModelBuilder 等工具輕鬆建立應用程式。

For the AI infrastructure layer, a key factor contributing to our high efficiency in model training and inference with our superior capability in GPU cluster management. We have recently made a breakthrough by integrating GPUs from different vendors into one large-scale unified computing cluster, allowing us to use less advanced chips for highly effective model training and inference.

對於AI基礎設施層，我們憑藉著卓越的GPU叢集管理能力，實現了模型訓練和推理的高效率。我們最近取得了突破，將不同供應商的 GPU 整合到大規模的統一運算叢集中，使我們能夠使用不太先進的晶片來進行高效的模型訓練和推理。

Our deep learning framework PaddlePaddle has through continuous innovation and enhancement helped reduce the cost of model training and inferencing on a constant basis. PaddlePaddle is compatible with over 50 different chips, many domestically designed and as developer community has grown to 13 million.

我們的深度學習框架PaddlePaddle透過不斷的創新和增強，不斷降低模型訓練和推理的成本。 PaddlePaddle 相容於 50 多種不同的晶片，其中許多是國內設計的，開發者社群已發展到 1,300 萬。

With ERNIE 3.5 and ERNIE 4.0, remain to be the flagship models for sophisticated tasks. We're making ERNIE more accessible and affordable by launching lightweight LLMs, introducing toolkits for model development and app development, applying MOE approach for model inference for better performance and lower cost. With our application-driven mindset, we have used ERNIE extensively to renovate our own products, and we have gained experience and insights in training and using ERNIE as well as developing AI native applications on it. We're making all these capabilities available to our customers and developers. With all these efforts, we are fostering a vibrant and healthy ecosystem around ERNIE. You can see that we are actually taking a holistic approach to developing Gen AI and LLM which is very different from some of our competitors.

ERNIE 3.5 和 ERNIE 4.0 仍然是複雜任務的旗艦型號。我們透過推出輕量級法學碩士、引入模型開發和應用程式開發工具包、應用 MOE 方法進行模型推理以實現更好的性能和更低的成本，使 ERNIE 變得更容易獲得和負擔得起。秉承應用驅動的理念，我們廣泛使用ERNIE來改造我們自己的產品，在培訓和使用ERNIE以及在其上開發AI原生應用方面積累了經驗和見解。我們正在向我們的客戶和開發人員提供所有這些功能。透過所有這些努力，我們正在 ERNIE 周圍培育一個充滿活力和健康的生態系統。您可以看到，我們實際上正在採取整體方法來開發 Gen AI 和 LLM，這與我們的一些競爭對手非常不同。

Our reserve and access to the chips on the market should be sufficient for us to support millions of AI applications in the future. And in the long run, I think China will form an ecosystem of its own, probably, with less powerful chips but most efficient homegrown software stack. There's ample room for innovation in the application layer, model layer and framework layer. With our self developed 4-layer AI infrastructure as well as our strong R&D team, our dedication to AI and our application-driven approach in building an ecosystem around ERNIE, I'm quite confident that Baidu will stand as a leader in China's AI ecosystem in the long term.

我們對市場上晶片的儲備和獲取應該足以支援未來數百萬個AI應用。從長遠來看，我認為中國可能會形成自己的生態系統，使用功能較弱的晶片，但擁有最高效的本土軟體堆疊。應用層、模型層、框架層都有很大的創新空間。憑藉我們自主研發的四層人工智慧基礎設施、強大的研發團隊、我們對人工智慧的專注以及我們圍繞ERNIE構建生態系統的應用驅動方法，我非常有信心百度將成為中國人工智慧生態系統的領導者在長期。

Your next question comes from Lincoln Kong with Goldman Sachs.

你的下一個問題來自高盛的林肯孔。

So my question is about the advertising business. So what's the major drag for the advertising growth if we compare with our peers? So whatever the trends we have seen for advertising budgets and advertiser sentiment, especially into second quarter, April and May, so how should we think about the normalized advertising growth for 2024?

我的問題是關於廣告業務的。那麼，與同業相比，廣告成長的主要阻力是什麼？因此，無論我們看到廣告預算和廣告商情緒的趨勢如何，尤其是第二季、4 月和 5 月，我們應該如何看待 2024 年的正常化廣告成長？

Yes. Our online marketing revenue grew by 3% year-over-year in the first quarter. While, traditional search is maturing. We are working hard to renovate the user experience with Gen AI. Right now about 11% of our search result pages are filled with generated results. This results will provide more accurate, better organized and direct answers to users' questions, and in some cases, enable users to do things they could not do before. We have not started the monetization of those Gen AI results. So it will take some time for revenue to catch up. And the weak macro also contributed to the softness of our ad business.

是的。第一季我們的網路行銷營收年增3%。與此同時，傳統搜尋正走向成熟。我們正在努力透過 Gen AI 革新用戶體驗。目前，我們大約 11% 的搜尋結果頁面充滿了產生的結果。這個結果將為用戶的問題提供更準確、更有條理、更直接的答案，並且在某些情況下，使用戶能夠做他們以前無法做的事情。我們還沒有開始將這些 Gen AI 成果貨幣化。因此，收入需要一段時間才能趕上。疲軟的宏觀經濟也導致了我們廣告業務的疲軟。

Our advertisers come from a wide range of industries with the majority being SMEs. This takes our advertising revenue highly sensitive to the macroenvironment, particularly to the off-line economy. In the first quarter, advertiser sentiment in some verticals such as real estate, and franchising remained weak, specifically in the real estate industry, not only was ad spending from developers and agencies muted but the impact also extended to both upstream and downstream sectors.

我們的廣告商來自各個行業，其中大多數是中小企業。這使得我們的廣告收入對宏觀環境特別是線下經濟高度敏感。一季度，房地產、特許經營等垂直行業的廣告主情緒依然疲軟，尤其是房地產行業，不僅開發商和代理商的廣告支出減少，影響也波及上下游行業。

For example, energy, chemicals, machinery, building materials for the upstream and home renovation, furniture, this is kind of downstream all saw constrained ad spending on our platform. Also many SMEs in offline sectors need more time to recover as they have been working hard from the past few years.

例如上游的能源、化工、機械、建材，還有家居裝潢、家具，這種下游都看到我們平台上的廣告支出受到限制。此外，許多線下中小企業由於過去幾年的努力，需要更多的時間來恢復。

As we enter the second quarter, we have not seen improvements in advertiser sentiment. Given the limited visibility for sentiment improvement, and paired with the tough comp in Q2, our online marketing revenue should remain fundamentally solid. But from a growth perspective, soft over the next few quarters. Beyond the near-term challenges, we expect online marketing to remain a [bread-butter] business Baidu for the foreseeable future. Certainly, it's one of the most popular apps in the Internet age, and Baidu remains the largest search engine in China with close to 700 million MAUs.

當我們進入第二季時，我們並沒有看到廣告商情緒的改善。鑑於情緒改善的可見度有限，再加上第二季的艱難競爭，我們的網路行銷收入應該保持基本穩定。但從成長角度來看，未來幾季將疲軟。除了近期的挑戰之外，我們預計在可預見的未來，網路行銷仍將是百度的重要業務。當然，它是互聯網時代最受歡迎的應用程式之一，百度仍然是中國最大的搜尋引擎，擁有近 7 億月活躍用戶。

Search will likely be one of the killer apps in the age of Gen AI. Technology innovation will enable us to better engage users with developers and merchants, directly connect users' intentions with most relevant product and service offering in more natural ways.

搜尋可能會成為人工智慧時代的殺手級應用程式之一。技術創新將使我們能夠更好地讓用戶與開發人員和商家互動，以更自然的方式將用戶的意圖與最相關的產品和服務直接聯繫起來。

Your next question comes from Thomas Chong with Jefferies.

您的下一個問題來自 Jefferies 的 Thomas Chong。

My question is about how much more room do we see in cost cutting. Previously, we mentioned there will be a lag between investment and AI revenue contribution. How should we look at margin trends in 2024, if you intend to expand your AI offerings?

我的問題是我們在成本削減方面還有多少空間。之前，我們提到投資和人工智慧收入貢獻之間會存在滯後。如果您打算擴展人工智慧產品，我們應該如何看待 2024 年的利潤趨勢？

Thomas, thank you so much for your question. I think macro challenges are still winning our marketing businesses. But we are confident that there still will be some ways for us to do to continue optimizing the operational efficiencies. We will sternly manage our cost expense for each businesses and we will take some further steps as necessary, including we try to streamline the organization structure to enhance the agility and support strategy flexibility. And we also will relocate the resources to prioritize the key strategic areas. If we take a look into our businesses for mobile ecosystem, I think we can still manage the costs and expenses. So the mobile ecosystem group continue to remain a strongly profitable and cash flow positive.

湯瑪斯，非常感謝你的提問。我認為宏觀挑戰仍在贏得我們的行銷業務。但我們相信，我們仍然有一些方法可以繼續優化營運效率。我們將嚴格管理每項業務的成本支出，並根據需要採取進一步措施，包括嘗試精簡組織結構以增強敏捷性並支援策略靈活性。我們也將重新配置資源，優先考慮關鍵策略領域。如果我們審視我們的行動生態系統業務，我認為我們仍然可以管理成本和費用。因此，行動生態系統集團持續保持強勁的獲利能力和正現金流。

For AI Cloud, as Dou just mentioned, we will continue to phase out the low-margin businesses and products. So we can continue generating the operating profit and margins on a non-GAAP basis. If we look into the longer term, the normalized margin for the Gen AI-related Cloud businesses should be higher than the legacy cloud business.

對於AI雲，正如竇剛所說，我們會繼續淘汰低利潤的業務和產品。因此，我們可以繼續在非公認會計原則的基礎上產生營業利潤和利潤率。如果我們從長遠來看，新一代人工智慧相關雲端業務的標準化利潤率應該高於傳統雲端業務。

For other businesses, we aim to reduce our loss as what we talked about in the past 3 quarters, particularly our intelligent driving business with more operational efficiency gains and the UE improvements for robotaxi. And many investors ask me how our investments in ERNIE will impact my margins. In fact, our investments are mainly related to CapEx for model training and inference.

對於其他業務，我們的目標是減少過去三個季度談到的損失，特別是我們的智慧駕駛業務，營運效率得到了更大的提升，以及機器人計程車用戶體驗的改進。許多投資人問我，我們對 ERNIE 的投資將如何影響我的利潤。事實上，我們的投資主要與模型訓練和推理的資本支出有關。

In 2023, we have made a large purchase which has arrived in best time -- at different times and the different depreciation start dates. While the annualized depreciation expenses will be available in the whole year 2024, the impact on our overall cost, expenses and quarterly earnings is quite predicable and manageable. The depreciation expenses are booked under the R&D expenses for computing power use training and the cost of revenue for computing power reviews for model inference and business expansions.

2023 年，我們進行了一次大額採購，並且在最佳時間到達——不同的時間和不同的折舊開始日期。雖然年化折舊費用將在2024年全年計算，但對我們整體成本、費用和季度收益的影響是相當可預測和可控的。折舊費用計入算力使用訓練的研發費用以及用於模型推理和業務擴展的算力審核的收入成本。

In the first quarter, we can see that Baidu Core's non-GAAP R&D and the cost of revenue both increased very slightly. While non-GAAP operating margin actually were expanding to 23.5% due to our disciplined spending on other items such as SG&A.

第一季度，我們可以看到百度核心的非GAAP研發和營收成本都略有成長。由於我們在 SG&A 等其他項目上的嚴格支出，非 GAAP 營業利潤率實際上已擴大至 23.5%。

We believe that chips we have in hand are sufficient to support the training of ERNIE for the next 1 or 2 years. And because of the limited availability of high-performance chips in China in this year 2024, we expect that our CapEx to be smaller versus last year.

我們相信我們手邊的晶片足以支援ERNIE未來1、2年的訓練。由於 2024 年中國高性能晶片的供應有限，我們預計我們的資本支出將低於去年。

In conclusion, the investments in Gen AI, large language models will have a manageable impact on the near-term margins. And with our monetization of ERNIE's already taking off, we expect that more and more revenue and profit will be generated from that kind of businesses from both -- for both mobile ecosystem and AI Cloud.

總之，對 Gen AI、大型語言模型的投資將對短期利潤產生可控的影響。隨著我們 ERNIE 的貨幣化已經起飛，我們預計行動生態系統和人工智慧雲端的此類業務將產生越來越多的收入和利潤。

Overall, Tom, we believe that high-quality growth and investment should be well balanced. For many years now, we have delivered a solid track record of the top line growth with the very absolute cost disciplines, and we intend to continue building our futures on this kind of business.

總的來說，湯姆，我們認為高品質成長和投資應該取得很好的平衡。多年來，我們憑藉嚴格的成本控制，在營收成長方面取得了良好的業績記錄，並且我們打算繼續在此類業務上打造我們的未來。

Your next question comes from [Jerry Yuan] with UBS.

你的下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的[Jerry Yuan]。

My question is about shareholder return. So how about we think about the execution pace of current RMB 5 billion buyback program, in addition to current buyback program, should we expect rather diversified approach to improve shareholder return?

我的問題是關於股東回報。那麼我們思考一下目前50億元回購計畫的執行速度，除了目前的回購計畫之外，我們是否應該期待更加多元化的方式來提高股東回報？

Yes. Thanks so much for your questions. And I think we highly value our shareholders, and we have been making efforts to increase the shareholder returns. We have consistently repurchased our shares from the market over the past 4 years, averaging around $1 billion, annually. In total, we have allocated around 37% of our free cash flow towards the -- our share buyback programs. I think during these periods and going forward, we will continue to buy back more shares from the market as we believe in our long term growth opportunities and we are very committed to the shareholder returns.

是的。非常感謝您的提問。我認為我們非常重視股東，我們一直在努力提高股東回報。在過去 4 年裡，我們一直在市場上回購股票，平均每年回購金額約 10 億美元。總的來說，我們將大約 37% 的自由現金流分配給了我們的股票回購計畫。我認為在這些時期和未來，我們將繼續從市場上回購更多股票，因為我們相信我們的長期成長機會，我們非常致力於股東回報。

And in addition, we have utilized our current share repurchase program to prevent any significant increase in the total outstanding shares comp aiming to reduce the potential dilution of our shareholders' economies stated in Baidu.

此外，我們也利用目前的股票回購計畫來防止流通股總數大幅增加，旨在減少百度所述股東經濟的潛在稀釋。

In the year 2023, you can see that our total number of shares outstanding was flat year-over-year compared to 1.2% increase in the year 2022 and a 3.2% increase in the year 2021. In this quarter, the total shares outstanding began to decrease. You can see that it has been declining by 0.5% as compared to the prior quarter.

2023年，你可以看到我們的流通股總數同比持平，而2022年增長了1.2%，2021年增長了3.2%。您可以看到，與上一季相比，下降了 0.5%。

We are adopting a strategy of sustainable and recurring share buyback programs from open market. And at the same time, we take into consideration opportunities ahead of us. Now we are facing a huge opportunity in Gen AI foundation models, and we have structured a concrete plan to capitalize it. So we want to have the flexibility to invest as we consider necessary and in the best interest of long-term value to the shareholders.

我們正在採取公開市場上永續和經常性股票回購計畫的策略。同時，我們也會考慮擺在我們面前的機會。現在我們在Gen AI基礎模型方面面臨著巨大的機遇，我們已經制定了一個具體的計劃來利用它。因此，我們希望在我們認為必要且符合股東長期價值最佳利益的情況下靈活地進行投資。

Furthermore, we believe that the most effective way to create values for shareholders is by building the strong business fundamentals. Our core marketing business remains steady and we believe that AI will help us to build another growth engine over time.

此外，我們相信為股東創造價值的最有效方法是建立強大的業務基礎。我們的核心行銷業務保持穩定，我們相信隨著時間的推移，人工智慧將幫助我們建立另一個成長引擎。

Your next question comes from Miranda Zhuang with BofA Securities.

您的下一個問題來自美國銀行證券的 Miranda Zhuang。

My question is about robotaxi. So can management share more updates on the robotaxi initiatives and the geographical coverage for this year. And I think previously, you mentioned that Apollo Go will achieve operating UE breakeven in Wuhan in near future. Want to understand what's the logic behind the efforts to continue to improve the UE. What's the projected size of the vehicle fleet for this year? And how will it potentially impact the cost?

我的問題是關於機器人出租車的。管理層是否可以分享有關今年機器人出租車計劃和地理覆蓋範圍的更多最新資訊。我想之前您提到Apollo Go將在不久的將來在武漢實現營運UE的盈虧平衡。想要了解持續改善UE的努力背後的邏輯是什麼。今年預計車隊規模是多少？它將如何影響成本？

Sure, Miranda. Let me give you some more color on the robotaxi business. In 2023, Apollo Go made significant progress in improving the regional unit economics in key cities. Let me use Wuhan, Apollo Go's largest operation to explain how we achieved that. .

當然，米蘭達。讓我為您提供有關機器人出租車業務的更多資訊。 2023年，Apollo Go在改善重點城市的區域單位經濟方面取得了重大進展。讓我用 Apollo Go 最大的行動武漢來解釋我們是如何實現這一目標的。 。

We kicked off Apollo Go's commercial operations in Wuhan back in 2022. Since then, we've witnessed a consistent enhancement in operational UE which can be attributed to the expanding scale of driverless operation and decreasing cost per vehicle.

我們早在 2022 年就在武漢啟動了 Apollo Go 的商業運營。

Regarding scale expansion, our vehicle fleet has been steadily growing. Compared to 1 year ago, our fully driverless fleet in Wuhan, has grown threefold reaching about 300 vehicles today. Meanwhile, both the operational area and service hours for fully driverless operation have been consistently expanding. Thanks to the increasing recognition of our autonomous driving technology by the local government.

在規模擴張方面，我們的車隊規模穩定成長。與一年前相比，我們在武漢的無人駕駛車隊數量增加了三倍，達到約 300 輛。同時，全無人駕駛作業的作業區域和服務時間不斷擴大。感謝地方政府對我們自動駕駛技術越來越認可。

The operational coverage area for fully driverless ride-hailing service increased by eightfold from a year ago, now covering over 7 million people in Wuhan. Apollo Go's operational hours also gradually expanded from only the off-peak hours in the beginning to adding peak hours to its operation and eventually, extending to 24/7 in March of this year.

無人駕駛叫車服務營運覆蓋面積比一年前擴大了8倍，目前已覆蓋武漢市超過700萬人。 Apollo Go的營運時間也從一開始只在非尖峰時段逐漸擴大到增加尖峰時段的運營，最終在今年3月延長至24/7。

The scale expansion resulted in a consistent improvement of UE in terms of revenue both daily rides per vehicle and distant ride have been growing. When it comes to cost, the majority is labor cost and hardware expenditures. We have been demonstrating consistent track record of safe operations, which help us to increase the deployment of fully driverless ride-hailing operation.

規模擴張使得UE的營收持續提升，單車日均乘車量及長程乘車量均持續成長。談到成本，大部分是人力成本和硬體支出。我們一直展現出一致的安全營運記錄，這有助於我們增加完全無人駕駛叫車營運的部署。

In April, the proportion of fully-driverless orders rose to 70%. That's up from only 10% in August 2022 and 45% Q4 of last year. We expect this figure to reach 100% in the coming quarters, thereby enabling us to minimize the cost related to safety officers.

4月份，完全無人駕駛訂單比例已升至70%。這比 2022 年 8 月的僅 10% 和去年第四季的 45% 有所上升。我們預計這一數字將在未來幾季達到 100%，使我們能夠最大限度地減少與安全官員相關的成本。

In addition to lowering the labor cost, we are steadfast in driving down hardware costs. The mass production time line of RT6, our sixth generation robotaxi remains on track adopting a battery swapping solution, the mass production price for RT6, excluding battery, is below USD 30,000. We will use RT6 as the primary vehicle in the future fleet expansion, and it should help to significantly reduce the hardware depreciation cost for each vehicle and further improving our UE and bring us closer to profitability.

除了降低勞動成本外，我們還堅定不移地降低硬體成本。我們的第六代機器人計程車RT6的量產時間仍在正常進行，採用換電方案，RT6的量產價格（不含電池）低於30,000美元。我們將使用RT6作為未來車隊擴張的主要車輛，這將有助於大幅降低每輛車的硬體折舊成本，並進一步提高我們的UE，使我們更接近獲利。

Looking into this quarter, we plan to expand the fully driverless fleet of our Wuhan operation to 1,000 vehicles by the end of the year, more than tripling from the end of last year. Our focus remains on improving regional UE and narrow the losses for Apollo Go business. With continued improvement in operational efficiency and cost reduction, we believe Apollo Go will achieve operational UE breakeven in Wuhan first. And once that's achieved, we can scale up the operations quickly.

展望本季度，我們計劃在年底將武漢業務的完全無人駕駛車隊擴大到 1,000 輛，比去年年底增加兩倍多。我們的重點仍然是改善區域 UE 並縮小 Apollo Go 業務的損失。隨著營運效率的不斷提高和成本的降低，我們相信Apollo Go將首先在武漢實現UE營運損益平衡。一旦實現這一點，我們就可以快速擴大營運規模。

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

女士們、先生們，今天的會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連線。