Baidu, the Chinese Internet company, has positively surprised the Wall Street by reporting an increase of 48% in the fourth quarter earnings.

Baidu reported earnings of CNY427.9 million ($62.7 million), or CNY12.27 ($1.80) per ADS for the fourth quarter of 2009, compared with CNY288.7 million, or CNY8.31 per ADS, for the comparable period of previous financial year. Revenue surged 40% to CNY1.26 billion ($184.7 million) on the year-on-year basis.

According to the executive of Baidu, "We do realize that sometimes the government may run certain campaigns to clean up the Internet landscape, and some Web sites could be shut down here and there. We just need to bear with that."

Baidu expects revenue for the first quarter 2010, in the range between $176 million and $181 million considering the fact that it is dominant player in China's Internet-search market and aggressively in rolling out a new advertising system dubbed Phoenix Nest.