Baidu's Annual Revenue of 129.1 Billion Yuan with a Net Profit Margin of About 4%, Futu's Net Profit Margin Nearly 50%
Baidu's total revenue for 2025 was 129.1 billion yuan, approximately 18.5 billion USD, a year-on-year decrease of 3%; net profit attributable to Baidu was 5.6 billion yuan, about 800 million USD, with a net profit margin of about 4%. Futu Holdings had revenue of 22.8 billion HKD, approximately 2.94 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 68%; net profit was 11.3 billion HKD, about 1.45 billion USD, with a net profit margin of about 50%.
The decline in Baidu's revenue mainly came from online marketing and the contraction of old businesses, partially offset by cloud services. The long-term asset impairment of core asset groups was 16.2 billion yuan, with an operating loss of 5.8 billion yuan; excluding impairment, operating profit was 10.4 billion yuan, and net profit attributable to the parent was 19.4 billion yuan. Non-GAAP net profit attributable to the parent was 18.9 billion yuan, with a profit margin of about 15%. By the end of 2025, cash and investments totaled 294.1 billion yuan, with operating cash flow of 2.6 billion yuan.
In Q2 2026, Baidu's revenue was 31.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4%; revenue from core AI-related businesses was 12.5 billion yuan, accounting for half of general business, a year-on-year increase of 25%; AI cloud infrastructure revenue was 7.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 50%, with GPU cloud revenue increasing by 283% year-on-year. The net profit attributable to the parent for the quarter was 2.3 billion yuan, with cash and investments totaling 283.1 billion yuan, and operating cash flow positive for the fourth consecutive quarter.
Futu's revenue included brokerage commissions of about 10.6 billion HKD and interest income of about 10.4 billion HKD, with a gross profit margin rising from 82.0% to 87.1%, and operating profit of 14.1 billion HKD, with an operating profit margin of about 62%. The number of funded accounts reached 3.37 million, a year-on-year increase of 40%; client assets totaled 12.33 trillion HKD, a year-on-year increase of 66%; the trading volume of securities and options was 14.68 trillion HKD, a year-on-year increase of 89%, with the comprehensive fee rate decreasing from 7.8 basis points to 7.2 basis points. The balance of margin financing and securities lending was 67.7 billion HKD. The company declared a dividend of 0.325 USD per ordinary share and canceled treasury shares.
In Q2 2026, Futu's revenue was 7.2 billion HKD, a year-on-year increase of 36%; net profit was 3.6 billion HKD, a year-on-year increase of 42%, with a net profit margin of about 51%. There were 252,000 new funded accounts. Both companies are increasing their investments in AI-related trading or computing power demands, but one is transforming through heavy assets in advertising and cloud, while the other relies on trading volume and interest spread as a light platform.
From a market mechanism perspective, buyers of Baidu are betting on whether search cash flow can be captured by cloud and models, while buyers of Futu are betting on the activity level of US and Hong Kong stock transactions. The event is the juxtaposition of two published annual reports. Funds on Baidu's balance sheet are more directed towards chips and impairments, while on Futu's balance sheet, they are more accumulated as client assets and interest. Benefiting are high-turnover brokerage platforms, while pressured are old search balance sheets that must continue capital expenditures amid declining marketing.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Baidu writes profits into impairments and cloud capital expenditures, while Futu writes profits into trading volume and client deposit funds. Search was once the most stable money-printing structure in China's internet, but in 2025, this money printer clearly gave way to cloud bills and asset write-downs for the first time. Futu has not invented a new asset class; it has simply turned the influx of retail investors into US tech stocks and options into a high-margin pipeline: half commission, half interest, and even with declining rates, it can still expand profits because the slope of volume is steeper.
The capital paths are opposite. Baidu uses nearly 300 billion in cash and investments to maintain Kunlun Chip, cloud, and content subsidiaries, with profits diluted to 5.6 billion by a one-time impairment of 16.2 billion. Futu requires almost no equivalent capital expenditure intensity; the expansion of client assets itself is the balance sheet. The motivations differ: one aims to prove that AI revenue can catch up with the decline in advertising, while the other aims to open accounts in Southeast Asia during a trading boom. Both claim to benefit from AI, but Baidu benefits from training and inference orders, while Futu benefits from thematic trading turnover.
A similar comparison is Google Ads to Charles Schwab, Tencent Social to Futu's peer brokerages: platform traffic monetization versus channel interest spread monetization, with profit margins potentially differing by an order of magnitude. Chinese internet advertising is in a transitional period being diverted by model applications, while cross-border retail brokerage is in an expansion phase brought about by US stock volatility. Whose profits are higher depends on who is closer to trading and fund accumulation, rather than whose brand is bigger.
The essence is the transfer of pricing power. Search pricing power is sliced by advertisers' budgets and cloud unit prices, while brokerage pricing power remains on channels and financing rates. The mechanism is: heavy asset intelligence first recognizes old asset impairments, while light asset channels first confirm commissions and interest spreads; in the same round of AI narratives, both the cloud selling shovels and the brokers selling tickets can make money simultaneously, but only the channel business retains profit margins in the bottom right corner of the balance sheet.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Revenue scale does not determine profit margin; the capital density of the business model does.
Clients putting money on your balance sheet is closer to money printing than clients viewing your ads.
The year impairments appear is often the year the old engine has already slowed down ahead of the new engine.