(Yicai Global) Sept. 29 -- The latest investigative report by Bank of Communications Co. [HK:3328] forecasts that Internet behemoth Baidu Inc. [NASDAQ:BIDU] will witness a performance enhancement due to less investment in the online-to-offline (O2O) business.

This thus maintains the take rate of the company stock and sends its target price to USD275.

Unmanned vehicles will achieve mass production in 2020, Baidu management revealed, per the report.

Driven by the profit increase due to less investment in O2O business, the predictive value of Baidu's annual profit in 2017 and 2018 has risen 3 percent, the report adds.

Baidu Search still has considerable growth potential with the contribution of feeds to the income from search business expected to exceed 5 percent at the end of this year. The negative effects of the medical advertising events of last year -- where a college student died at the hands of a quack practitioner he found on the search engine -- have basically dissipated, the report concluded.

The report also indicates the number of paying users of iQIYI -- the video service provider under Baidu -- has exceeded 30 million. Further, the gap between fee-based business and advertising business as respective contributions to the company's profitability is shrinking, while the rapid income growth will boost iQIYI's profitability.