Independent research on the U.S. markets, Baptista Research

Baptista Research

Independent research on the U.S. markets

Baptista Research is an independent financial research house focused on the U.S. markets. We provide equity research as well as credit research reports on the top-listed U.S. companies with most of our focus on technology, consumer goods and services, automobiles, industrials, oil and gas, pharma, and healthcare. Our research has served more than 3000 institutional investors including mutual funds, hedge funds, banks, family offices, and various buy-side firms. We operate a research subscription service where institutions, as well as retail investors, can have priority access to all our research. We also have a wide distribution of our research reports across some of the top global financial platforms. Apart from equity research and credit research, we also provide advisory services with respect to mergers & acquisitions (M&A), private equity/ venture capital fundraising, valuation reports, and investment management services for corporates.
Baptista Research is owned and managed by Ishan Majumdar, an ex-Venture Capitalist/ Investment Banker, a Chartered Accountant, and a Masters’ degree holder in Management from HEC Paris. Ishan has nearly a decade of experience in Mergers and Acquisitions, Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs), Venture Capital Investing, Corporate Strategy, and Valuation in front-office roles at the likes of BNP Paribas CIB, Credit Agricole CIB, Groupe Danone, and TIW Private Equity. He has worked on and closed multiple acquisition deals, leveraged buyouts, and start-up investment transactions.

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul><li>iQIYI, an innovative market-leading online entertainment service provider in China, delivered robust first-quarter 2024 results, achieving numerous record highs, such as non-GAAP operating income and its corresponding margin.</li><li>CEO, Mr. Yu Gong, shared that the expanding margin could be attributed to the high-quality growth of the company.</li><li>The Membership Services business continued its growth trajectory with monthly ARM observed an all-time high.</li></ul>

iQIYI, an innovative market-leading online entertainment service provider in China, delivered robust first-quarter 2024 results, achieving numerous record highs, such as non-GAAP operating income and its corresponding margin.CEO, Mr. Yu Gong, shared that the expanding margin could be attributed to the high-quality growth of the company.The Membership Services business continued its growth trajectory with monthly ARM observed an all-time high.

iQIYI Inc.: Initiation of Coverage - How Are They Leveraging Generative AI capabilities? - Major Drivers

Global Emerging Market Equities, Propitious Research

Wium Malan, CFA

Global Emerging Market Equities

Independent, Fundamental Quantitative Research

Propitious Research

Fully independent, fundamental and quantitative equity research, focused on companies in the Telecommunication, Media, Technology, Internet and Healthcare sectors in the Global Emerging Markets. Idea generation focused on Quality stocks, trading below their intrinsic Value, with sound Corporate Governance.

<ul>
<li>Since late 2020, Search’s share of digital advertising revenue has stabilised at around 8-10%, seemingly retaining its core advertising customers and industries.</li>
<li>Baidu management expects AI Cloud to maintain strong revenue growth momentum in the upcoming quarters.</li>
<li>Baidu trades on a 3.6x NTM EV/EBITDA multiple, well below one standard deviation lower than its 5-year historical average trading range and the lowest it has ever been.</li>
</ul>


Since late 2020, Search’s share of digital advertising revenue has stabilised at around 8-10%, seemingly retaining its core advertising customers and industries.
Baidu management expects AI Cloud to maintain strong revenue growth momentum in the upcoming quarters.
Baidu trades on a 3.6x NTM EV/EBITDA multiple, well below one standard deviation lower than its 5-year historical average trading range and the lowest it has ever been.


Blue Lotus China New Economy Research, Blue Lotus Research Institute

Eric Wen

Blue Lotus China New Economy Research

China growth and global non-US Internet equities

Blue Lotus Research Institute

Blue Lotus Research is a Hong Kong Type 4 Licensed investment advisory firm focusing on Chinese growth equities and global non-US Internet equities

<ul>
<li>Generative AI (GAI) helps capex, no doubt. But key question is whether capex can yield to revenue and profits;</li>
<li>Content creation industry is sure to realize revenue and profits. iQiyi and NetEase already said so with concreate examples;</li>
<li>Advertising can realize revenue by better matching of ads inventory and perhaps improve inventory utilization.</li>
</ul>


Generative AI (GAI) helps capex, no doubt. But key question is whether capex can yield to revenue and profits;
Content creation industry is sure to realize revenue and profits. iQiyi and NetEase already said so with concreate examples;
Advertising can realize revenue by better matching of ads inventory and perhaps improve inventory utilization.


GAI-Related Numbers and Quotes from C1Q24 Earnings

<ul>
<li>The key takeaway from this earning season on the topic of generative AI (GAI) is that in-house generated content has the greatest potential for cost savings;</li>
<li>Taking a step further, mid-sized video platforms can also use AI to skip the curator layer, similar to Pinduoduo using algorithm to bypass small merchants to connect directly to factories;</li>
<li>We also notice that general media platforms with ample advertising inventories tend to perform better with AI's help, which is why ads of Tencent's advertising performed better than Baidu's.</li>
</ul>


The key takeaway from this earning season on the topic of generative AI (GAI) is that in-house generated content has the greatest potential for cost savings;
Taking a step further, mid-sized video platforms can also use AI to skip the curator layer, similar to Pinduoduo using algorithm to bypass small merchants to connect directly to factories;
We also notice that general media platforms with ample advertising inventories tend to perform better with AI's help, which is why ads of Tencent's advertising performed better than Baidu's.


A Few Generative AI Takeaways From C1Q24 Earnings

Blue Lotus Non US Internet research, Blue Lotus Research Institute

Ying Pan

Blue Lotus Non US Internet research

<ul>
<li>On February 15, OpenAI, Google and Amazon launched respective AI advances in video LLM (SORA), long text (Gemini 1.5), and text-to-speech (BASE) abilities. The evolution speed of AI inspired awe;</li>
<li>We estimate rival equivalent of SORA, delivered over cloud, will appear in 4-6 months of time but on-device version will take years.</li>
<li>We suggest 2C AI applications, especially video, will be the prime beneficiary</li>
</ul>


On February 15, OpenAI, Google and Amazon launched respective AI advances in video LLM (SORA), long text (Gemini 1.5), and text-to-speech (BASE) abilities. The evolution speed of AI inspired awe;
We estimate rival equivalent of SORA, delivered over cloud, will appear in 4-6 months of time but on-device version will take years.
We suggest 2C AI applications, especially video, will be the prime beneficiary


[Blue Lotus Technology Sector Update]: LLM Advances Give China and US Both Opportunities

China

iQIYI, Inc. offers video entertainment services. The Company provides movies, television dramas, variety shows, and other video contents. iQIYI offers services worldwide.

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iQIYI Inc (IQ US)

iQIYI Inc.: Initiation of Coverage - How Are They Leveraging Generative AI capabilities? - Major Drivers

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[Blue Lotus Technology Sector Update]: LLM Advances Give China and US Both Opportunities

OpenAI, Google and Amazon launched respective AI advances in video LLM (SORA), long text (Gemini 1.5), and text-to-speech (BASE) abilities.We...

Blue Lotus Research Institute

Price Gauge

52-week Range

Market Cap (USDm)

P/E

Dividend (Yield)

iQIYI Inc.: Initiation of Coverage - How Are They Leveraging Generative AI capabilities? - Major Drivers

iQIYI, an innovative market-leading online entertainment service provider in China, delivered robust first-quarter 2024 results, achieving...

Baptista Research

Baidu: Priced to Fail

In this insight, we analyse Baidu’s search query and digital advertising revenue market share trends, revenue growth outlook, margin expansion...

Wium Malan, CFA

GAI-Related Numbers and Quotes from C1Q24 Earnings

Generative AI (GAI) is already contributing revenues in content creation (game) and ad load optimization (advertising). But the bigger pay off must...

Blue Lotus Research Institute

A Few Generative AI Takeaways From C1Q24 Earnings

C1Q24 generative AI has made explicit impact on listco earnings. We summarized the observed trends and found China has a great deal of potential to...

Blue Lotus Research Institute

[Blue Lotus Technology Sector Update]: LLM Advances Give China and US Both Opportunities

OpenAI, Google and Amazon launched respective AI advances in video LLM (SORA), long text (Gemini 1.5), and text-to-speech (BASE) abilities.We...

Blue Lotus Research Institute