Is Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) A Good Stock To Buy Now?

Is BIDU a good stock to buy? We came across a bullish thesis on Baidu, Inc. on Baidu, Inc. on La Newsletter De Momentum's Substack by Momentum Financial. In this article, we will summarize the bulls' thesis on BIDU. Baidu, Inc.'s share was trading at $117.94 as of July 1st. BIDU's trailing and forward P/E were 78.19 and 25.91 respectively according to Yahoo Finance.

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Baidu, Inc. provides internet content, value-added telecommunication-based, internet map, and online audio and video services in the People's Republic of China. BIDU is positioned as a leading Chinese technology company with its Apollo Go robotaxi platform emerging as the largest autonomous mobility network, placing it at the forefront of the expanding robotaxi market. While Tesla has dominated investor imagination in autonomy, Baidu has already operationalized large-scale deployments across more than 20 cities, benefiting from China's policy tailwinds, including national strategic prioritization of autonomous driving.

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The robotaxi market is projected to grow at a CAGR of roughly 75%, with TAM estimates ranging from $75 billion by 2032 to $168 billion by 2035, and Goldman Sachs forecasting around 705,000 robotaxis in operation by 2030. Baidu's cost advantage, estimated at $27,500–$35,000 per vehicle through its JMC partnership for the RT6 platform, further strengthens scalability. Even under conservative assumptions of 18% market share and 20% operating margins, Baidu could generate over $6 billion in operating profit, more than doubling its current $2.5–$3 billion baseline.

Incremental robotaxi contribution alone of $430 million could re-rate earnings given its current valuation. Baidu's ecosystem advantage is reinforced by Baidu Maps, with over 600 million monthly users and more than 200 million points of interest, enabling integrated ride-hailing, advertising, and local commerce monetization.

Combined with ERNIE's agentic AI capabilities for routing, logistics optimization, and contextual services, Baidu builds a vertically integrated autonomy and AI stack. Trading at 14–16x earnings and even lower on a net cash basis, Baidu offers asymmetric upside, where successful robotaxi scale and AI monetization could drive substantial re-rating, while downside is supported by cash-generative core search and AI businesses.

Previously, we covered a bullish thesis on Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) by Alexandru Dragut in November 2024, which highlighted the company's AI Cloud expansion, ERNIE ecosystem, Apollo Go progress, and undervaluation. BIDU's stock price has appreciated by approximately 40.30% since our coverage. Momentum Financial shares a similar view but emphasizes on Apollo Go's robotaxi leadership and long-term earnings upside driven by autonomous mobility and AI monetization.