百度出售攜程10億股票，打算放棄攜程？

Baidu, the search engine group, is selling about $1bn of its shares in Ctrip, China’s largest travel booking website, bolstering its cash on hand after a difficult year for profits.

搜索引擎百度(Baidu)出售了中國最大旅游預(yù)訂網(wǎng)站攜程(Ctrip)約10億美元股票，在經(jīng)歷了盈利困難的一年后增加手頭的現(xiàn)金。

Ctrip, which owns Skyscanner, the UK flight search engine and is known as Trip.com outside China, said on Wednesday in a stock exchange filing that it will sell 31.3m of its Nasdaq-listed shares owned by the Chinese search engine.

旗下?lián)碛杏桨嗨阉饕嫣煅簿W(wǎng)(Skyscanner)的攜程，在中國境外以Trip.com為人所知。該公司周三在一份證交所申報文件中表示，將出售由百度持有的其在納斯達(dá)克(Nasdaq)上市的3130萬股票。

The sale makes up a third of Baidu’s stake in Ctrip, and Baidu will remain its largest shareholder after the deal.

這筆交易占百度所持?jǐn)y程股份的三分之一，交易完成后，百度仍將是攜程的最大股東。

Baidu has struggled to maintain its position in the “tech trinity” of China’s most valuable tech companies alongside Alibaba and Tencent, which were faster to adapt to the mobile age.

百度竭力保住其作為中國市值最高的“科技三巨頭”之一的地位。另兩個巨頭——阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和騰訊(Tencent)——更快適應(yīng)了移動時代。

Profits have suffered in recent years as a result of scandals over medical advertising and falling ad revenues.

近年，由于醫(yī)療廣告丑聞和廣告收入下降，百度的利潤受到了影響。

Baidu, whose primary app offering is its search engine and news feed, is facing harsh competition in advertising revenues from apps that offer transactions and social media data for better targeted advertising, such as Tencent’s WeChat social messaging app and Meituan Dianping’s takeaway app.

百度提供的主要app是其搜索引擎和新聞遞送。該公司在廣告收入上面臨著騰訊(Tencent)的社交信息應(yīng)用微信(WeChat)和美團(tuán)點評(Meituan Dianping)外賣app等競爭對手的嚴(yán)峻挑戰(zhàn)，后者可提供交易和社交媒體數(shù)據(jù)，可以更有針對性地投放廣告。

In May, the company reported its first quarterly loss since listing in New York in 2005. Cost-cutting helped the company return to profit in August, but its net profits were still down 63 per cent on the previous year.

今年5月，百度公布了自2005年在紐約上市以來的首次季度虧損。8月份，成本削減幫助該公司恢復(fù)了盈利，但其凈利潤仍較上年下降63%。

Its shares, too, have more than halved during the past 12 months.

過去12個月，該公司的股價也下跌了一半以上。

Thomas Chong, an analyst at Jefferies Hong Kong, said Baidu might use the proceeds from the Ctrip sale to fund share repurchases. In May, the company approved a $1bn share repurchase scheme.

杰富瑞(Jefferies)駐香港的分析師Thomas Chong表示，百度可能會利用出售攜程股票的所得回購股票。5月，該公司批準(zhǔn)了一項價值10億美元的股票回購計劃。

“Baidu is trying to shrink some of its business and sell its fringe businesses, because their key business, such as AI, is seen to be a bit hard up,” said Ma Xuhua of Driscm Consulting in Shanghai.

“百度正試圖縮減部分業(yè)務(wù)，出售邊緣業(yè)務(wù)，因為業(yè)界認(rèn)為其人工智能等關(guān)鍵業(yè)務(wù)有點資金拮據(jù)。”上海達(dá)睿咨詢(Driscm Consulting)的Ma Xuhua表示。

Baidu has poured money into AI research for its Apollo driverless car project. Baidu has started testing driverless cars in Beijing with Daimler and Ford but the project has yet to yield meaningful revenues.

百度為其阿波羅無人駕駛汽車項目的人工智能研究投入了大量資金。該公司已開始與戴姆勒(Daimler)和福特(Ford)在北京測試無人駕駛汽車，但該項目尚未產(chǎn)生可觀的收入。

Baidu is unlikely to abandon Ctrip, as it is a steady flow of cash, added Mr Ma.

Ma Xuhua補(bǔ)充道，百度不太可能放棄攜程，因為后者是一個穩(wěn)定的現(xiàn)金流。