Baidu.com, China's leading Chinese language Internet search engine, said its net profit surged 142.7 percent year on year to 141.9 million yuan (18.6 million U.S. dollars) in the second quarter of 2007.

The company's total revenue rose 109.4 percent over the corresponding period in 2006 to 401.3 million yuan (52.7 million U.S.dollars), the Guangzhou Daily quoted the company's quarterly report as saying.

Li Yanhong, Chairman and CEO of Baidu, attributes the leap in profit to the successful implementation of strategic improvement made over the last two quarters.

"During the second quarter, we saw robust revenue growth and a healthy increase in online marketing customers," Li said.

The company's share price rose sharply on Friday to 216.8 U.S. dollars per share, representing a 18.32 percent increase.

Baidu also expects its total revenue to reach between 492 million yuan (64.6 million U.S.dollars) to 506 million yuan (66.5 U.S.dollars) in the third quarter, up 106 percent to 111 percent year on year.

Baidu continued to be No. 1 in China's search engine market in the first half of this year with a 57.6 percent share of the market, up 10.2 percentage points from the year-earlier period, according to the latest report by the Beijing-based research firm Analysys International.

Its rival company Google China saw its market share rise to 21 percent as its localizing strategy paid off in the first half, and Yahoo China was in the third place with 12.5 percent, according to the report.