Chinese search engine Baidu more than doubled its Q3 profit, as it picked up more users from Google as a result of the latter's high-profile spat with the Chinese government.
Profit grew 112.4% to 1.047 billion yuan ($157.4m), from 76.4% higher revenue of 2.26 billion yuan ($339.2m).
Baidu's advertiser customers increased 25.9% to 272,000, and the amount each advertiser spent grew 40.7% from Q309 to 8,300 yuan.
Advertising and marketing expenses increased 49.8% to 296.2 million yuan, while R&D spend grew 75.4% to 204.7 million yuan.
Traffic acquisition costs fell to 8.9% of revenues from 15.3%, in what Baidu CFO Jennifer Li said was down to faster organic growth.
“We are pleased to have delivered record margins in the third quarter, even as we actively invested in sales and marketing, R&D and network equipment,” Li said.