China's largest search engine, Baidu, reported strong revenue and profit growth in the first quarter, driven by "solid traffic growth" and measures to generate more revenue from the company's sites.
Its search engine is already the default for 80 percent of Android phones in China. The company is now testing its own browser, and offers a beta version of its microblogging site as it pursues new opportunities in the country.
Baidu, which operates in a country with 457 million Internet users, reported on Thursday that net profits for the quarter ended March 31 were US$164 million, up by 123 percent from the same quarter last year. The company's revenue for the quarter was $372 million, up 88 percent from the same period last year.
The company expects revenue in the second quarter to be in the range of $493 million to $504 million, a year-on-year increase of up to 72.4 percent.
Read more: China's Baidu Revenue, Profits up on Strong Traffic Growth
Hiring expectations in Hong Kong and China continued to rise in the second quarter because of optimism over the two economies, according to a survey by recruitment agency Hudson Highland Group Inc. this week.
Of the survey’s respondents in China, 77% said they plan to increase their staff in the three months ending June 30, up from 72% in the previous quarter.
Toyota Motor Co announced it will cut 50 to 70 percent of production in China, Sina.com reported Thursday.
The production cuts are due to insufficient supply of parts caused by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Toyota, the world's largest automaker, said the production cut will last until June 5.
China is the third largest production base for Toyota, with factories mainly located in Tianjin, Guangzhou and Sichuan.
China Datang Corporation Renewable Power Co Ltd will join efforts to establish a joint venture for developing wind farms and other renewable energy resources in Australia, said Datang in a statement published on its website Wednesday.
This joint venture -- AusChina Energy Group -- will be founded by Datang Renewable in cooperation with CBD Energy Limited, an Australian-based company, and Baoding Tianwei Baobian Electric Co Ltd, a company based in north China's Hebei province, according to the statement.
The telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent said on Wednesday that it has signed a research memorandum with China's biggest telecom carrier, China Mobile Communications Corp, in areas such as the next generation mobile networks and cloud computing.
The partnership will help the French-American telecom gear vendor to be in a better position to profit from the world's most populous mobile telecom market.
Ben Verwaayen, chief executive of Alcatel-Lucent, said the partnership will have a fundamental impact on the company as the focus of the world's telecom market is changing from networks to applications and services.
"The network is becoming more intelligent, not just access and transition but also applications," said Verwaayen in an interview on Wednesday.
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