BEIJING (AP) — Baidu Inc., which operates China’s leading search engine, said Thursday its quarterly profit edged down 0.4 percent as it spent heavily to promote mobile services amid an industrywide scramble to keep up with users who increasingly surf the Web on smartphones.

Baidu earned 2.8 billion yuan ($459.9 million) in the three months ending Dec. 31, the Beijing-based company announced. Revenue rose 50.3 percent compared with a year earlier to 9.5 billion yuan ($1.6 billion).