The company’s first-quarter profit climbed 24 percent on surging advertising sales, handily beating analysts’ estimates. And while the econalypse has troubled it a bit–the company saw a decline in active customers–Baidu is confident in its future performance. Said CEO Robin Li, “With more and more search traffic or inventory to sell and better and better monetization capability, I think this company will be able to maintain a better high growth rate for the years to come.”

Obviously, it will be a boon to Google (GOOG) as well. The company’s arch rival in China, Baidu.com has long dominated the country’s search market, thanks in large part to the access it offers to free, unlicensed music downloads–access with which the global recording industry has repeatedly taken issue. Today, Baidu controls about 65 percent of China’s Internet search market. Google controls just 26 percent. But that might change very quickly if Google’s free, legal, music industry-supported service wins over users.

Astonishing. Since mid-September, Google’s market cap has increased more than 30%, reaching $220.68 billion. Which, as Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget notes, makes it the fifth most valuable company in the U.S. How long until it’s the fourth? Or the first? How long until GOOG is trading at $2,000 a share?

Perhaps not that long at all. Dinosaur Research’s David Garrity put a fresh $985 target on the company this morning, figuring 48 times 2008 earnings. His justification? The mobile ad market. “To the extent that advertising media distribution channels are being transformed by emerging technologies with the possibility that mobile advertising may ultimately become more significant than the current broadcast channel in spending terms,” Garrity writes, “GOOG, in effectively penetrating the walled garden that wireless communications services have been until now, is securing a strategic technology provider role that will allow it to meaningfully shape the progression of development in the space.”