Baidu's fourth quarter profit grows 31%

Internet search provider Baidu posted a fourth quarter profit of US$42.2 million, up 31% year-on-year, Bloomberg reported. Both profits and sales – up 58% to US$131.93 million – were lower than analysts’ estimates. Baidu expects revenues of US$114-117 million in the first quarter of 2009, which is again below analysts’ estimates. The company faced criticism late last year because state media said it displayed misleading listings in search results. Baidu CEO Robin Li issued a public apology at the time and promised to redesign the search results to better distinguish between paid and unpaid search rankings.