BAIDU.COM, the most popular Chinese search engine, posted a five-fold jump in fourth-quarter earnings due to increased customer traffic and average spending in marketing on its platform. But it forecast sales in the first quarter of this year to grow at the slowest pace since the company listed due to keen competition from rivals like Google Inc in the Chinese mainland market.

The firm achieved a net income in the fourth quarter of 122.8 million yuan (US$15.7 million), or 45 US cents diluted earnings per share.

Sales rose 136 percent from a year earlier in the fourth quarter to 271.3 million yuan, the slowest growth since 2005 when its shares debuted on Nasdaq in August. The company forecast growth in sales may further slow to 95 percent to 103 percent in the first quarter year on year.

Sales of search-linked advertising in the first quarter of last year were negatively affected by the week-long lunar New Year holiday, Robin Li, Baidu chairman and chief executive said. Li noted that its blogging and Chinese wikipedia service have continued to bring more users to Baidu, which already ranks as the fourth most-visited site in the world.

Baidu dominates the Chinese search market, with a 58 percent share in the fourth quarter. Google's share in the quarter rose by one percentage point to 17 percent, followed by Yahoo's 13 percent.

But the gap may narrow in terms of paid commercial customer numbers for marketing on the search engines. According to a report by the Internet Society of China, Baidu had a share of nearly 40 percent last year while Google had nearly 20 percent, followed by Yahoo's 13 percent.

Google Inc, the world's most used search engine, has just teamed up with China's top download service provider Xunlei Technologies in January to provide search service on the latter's site for its 120 million users.

Meanwhile, Baidu has formed a strategic alliance with Microsoft, which helps distribute Baidu's paid listings - which mixes with search results when key words are typed in - on its sites including MSN, Live and other partner Websites in China.

Source:未知