chinese searchengine giant baidu incs shares rose in early asian trade on friday after its firstquarter results beat expectations and as several analysts raised their stockprice targets baidus hong konglisted shares rose as much as 16 to 13430 hong kong dollars trimming its yeartodate loss to about 7 baidu said after thursdays market close in hong kong that its firstquarter revenue rose 1 to 2841 billion yuan us422 billion supported by strong demand for its cloud and artificialintelligence products it posted a net loss of cny885 million compared with net profit of cny2565 billion a year earlier citi analysts said baidus revenue beat street estimates of cny279 billion and described the results as solid and better than feared given weakening sentiment for advertising purchases and pandemicrelated mobility restrictions in china toward the end of the quarter they kept their buy rating and raised their target price on baidus uslisted american depositary receipts to us223 from us221 the adrs last traded at us13619 in a note the citi analysts said the company remains wellpositioned to ride on digitalization of industrial internet city urbanization initiatives and carbon neutral target but cautioned that visibility into the second half remains low daiwa capital analysts kept a buy rating and raised their target price on baidus hong konglisted shares to hk210 from hk203 analysts john choi and candis chan in a research note highlighted its stringent cost controls and managements focus on maintaining stable margins for the marketing business which daiwa expects to be hurt by pandemic restrictions in the second quarter nomura analysts likewise highlighted the betterthanexpected results they maintained their neutral rating and us139 target price on baidus adrs