Sina Weibo went into the black in the fourth quarter of 2013 for the first time, but...

SINA corporation published the financial results in the fourth quarter of 2013, and they also published the financial results of Sina Weibo there.

According to this report, Sina Weibo went into the black in the fourth quarter of 2013 for the first time, their sales revenue was 71.4 million USD in total.

The breakdown of total revenue was composed of 56.0 million USD of ad revenue and 15.4 million USD of service revenue. Its ads revenue increased 163% compared with the year-earlier period, and its service revenue increased 114% compared with the year-earlier period.

Sina Weibo was also increasing their revenue on the second quarter and the third quarter compared with each year-earlier period, so it can be said that their sales performance has been continuously growing.

And according to the information from Financial Times, Sina Weibo prepares New York IPO in the second quarter of this year.


Judging only from their financial results and the rumor of IPO, their future seems to be rosy. But I think there are two main anxiety of them.

- The percentage of ad revenue was too high.
As everyone knows, the customer basically would like to advertise on the platform that has a lot of active users. But as I repeatedly said, Sina Weibo has continuously decreased their active users. In the interview of this financial results, the official said their active user increased to 61.4 million in December. But I feel this comment is unbelievable.


I have login to Sina Weibo everyday since 2010 to watch the number of active friend user, and I also have checked the traffic from Sina Weibo to the official site of our company every week. But as I said before, both are continuously decreasing.

I think it is high time to reconsider countermeasures to increase their active users. Otherwise they will also decrease the sponsor of advertisement.


- There are no remarkable outcome from the relationship with Alibaba.
As you know, Alibaba acquired 18% share of Sina Weibo in 586 million USD last April. And they also started alliance activity at same time, but till now, it seems that there are no remarkable outcome from it.

Alibaba is the giant company in Chinese EC industry, and they also have a lot of giant group company, such as Taobao and Alipay. So there should be a lot of method to enhance their relationship. But it seems that their remarkable outcome is only that ads posting or banner increased on Sina Weibo.

I think that they also have to consider this countermeasure in earnest.


Anyway, we have to continue watching their action as ever.


Source => Official financial report from Sina corp. , TechWeb

The battle in the lunar new year greetings of the big three social media services in China. (QQ/ WeChat/ Sina Weibo)

This year, from Jan 31 to Feb 6th is the lunar new year holiday in China. And by the old calender, Jan 31 was the new year's day, and Jan 30 was the new year's eve of this year. Recently the person who send and receive the greetings of new year on the social media is rapidly increasing in China as I explained before.

Chinese big three social media service, QQ, WeChat, Sina Weibo published the announcement that is related with the new year's greetings as follows.

1. QQ (Tencent)

According to the official announcement, there were 13.6 billion messages in Jan 30th on QQ platform. And in a peak time, there were 32.7 million messages in 1 minute, and they also said that there were 16 million video messages in 1 day.


2. WeChat (Tencent)

According to the official announcement, in a peak time, there were about 10 million messages on WeChat. They didn't publish the total message number of Jan 30th, but they said that its total sending message number were double of the last year, and its total receiving message number were three times of the last year.

And they also said the peak time of exchanging messages were 22:00 and 24:00 on Jan 30th.


3. Sina Weibo (Sina)

According to the official announcement, there were 863,408 messages on the first one minute of Jan 31. They also didn't publish the total messages number, but there were 729,751 message at the same period of the last year, so it can be said its number was increasing.


Well, by looking only this result, QQ is the king. And the next is WeChat, and Sina Weibo was far away from them. But this result was based of new year greetings.

In general, the new year greetings are exchanged between the family, friends and the acquaintance. I think that the social media services can categorize two types by the point of their characteristic view.

Those are "social media service that directed inward" and "social media service that directed outward". Users mainly exchange the personal information between the close relationship in the "social media service that directed inward", and its typical example is Facebook.

On the other hand, user would like to spread their information to unknown people such as the purpose of personal branding in the "social media service that directed outward", and its typical example is Twitter.

And I think that QQ and WeChat is the "social media service that directed inward", and Sina Weibo is the "social media service that directed outward". So I think that Sina Weibo does not have to be pessimistic about this result. If the standard is different, its result also will be different.

But Sina Weibo is recently said that their total users or active users are decreasing.  I think, in the peak period of their growth( it is in 2011) , the users who like the "social media service that directed inward" also joined Sina Weibo, because their friend or acquaintance also use Sina Weibo. And recently, mainly such user was gone or stop to use Sina Weibo, I think.

So I think that Sina Weibo have to care the users who like the "social media service that directed outward", and at the same time, they have to decide how treat the users who like the "social media service that directed inward".


Last, I would like to introduce the status of SMS messages.

SMS has been the most popular method of exchanging the new year greeting in China for a long time. But as I explained before, its number is recently decreasing year by year.

Its number is estimated 30 billion messages during this Chinese new year's holiday, but its number will be decreasing 1.17 billion messages compared with the last year. Mainly almost young people, 80's or 90's, like to use QQ or WeChat when they will sent such greetings, so I think this trend also continue in future.


Many users sometimes have the different two intention in their mind, such as "social media service that directed inward" and "social media service that directed outward". When many users get tires of the "social media service that directed inward", then they tend to move to the "social media service that directed outward". And the reverse pattern is also true.

Now WeChat is the most powerful social media service in China, and it can be said that WeChat is the "social media service that directed inward". So I think the "social media service that directed outward" may come to the fore as a next trend of WeChat.


Souece => Social Media in China blog (Japanese version)

The alternation of generations is certainly ongoing. The latest report by CNNIC said Weibo decreased the number of its user and the usage rate for the first time.

Last time, I reported the summary of report by CNNIC, and I explained that the latest number of internet users and mobile internet users in China. And today, I would like to introduce the situation by each internet service in China.

The first picture is written about the number of users and the usage rate by each internet services in China.

Instant messenger still kept the pole position, and its user number was 532.15 million people, and its growth rate is 13.8% increasing compared with the previous year. And the travel booking service and the group buying service scored more than 60% growth rate, so it can be said that their service achieved rapid growth compared with the previous year.

But the most symbolic result is the decline of Weibo. Weibo decreased the number of its user and the usage rate for the first time. As I explained before, the growth of Weibo was slowing down from the last half of 2011. And its active users were also slowly decreasing. But this time, its fact was verified by this report again.

From the last year, WeChat and similar service was rapidly increasing users, and Weibo had been absolutely affected. Sina Weibo started the collaboration with Alibaba group last year, and they had groped the monetization of their platform.

Sina Weibo started the collaboration with Alibaba group last year, and they had groped the monetization of their platform.

But I think its monetization also had a one of the negative impact for their users. Because their collaboration brought a lot of advertize posting on their platform, so it seem that the quite a lot users decided to stop using their platform.

To keep balance of the monetization and the user satisfaction will be most important thing for Sina Weibo, I think.


And the next graph is the situation by each mobile internet services.

The service that achieved more than 10% growth are as follows: Mobile Online Video, Mobile Online Game, Mobile Online Payment， Mobile Online Banking， Mobile Group Buying

'Weibo' also decreased the usage rate in mobile internet area, and it decreased 8.9% compared with the previous year. And 'Mobile SNS' also decreased the usage rate, and it decreased 11.1% compared with previous year.


I wonder whether WeChat or similar IM services can keep their power or not, otherwise other new service may be appeared.

I guess that Chinese social media industry will be occured the diastrophism in 2014...


Source => The report by CNNIC

The ad sales revenue of Sina Weibo increased 125% compared with the year-earlier period. They will also publish ads API soon.

Sina recently published the performance reporting of Sina Weibo in the third quarter.

This report said that the total revenue of Sina Weibo in the third quarter was 53.4 million USD, and this breakdown is composed of 43.7 million USD ad revenue and 9.7 million USD services revenue.

Their ad revenue increased 125% compared with the year-earlier period, and their service revenue increased 121%, but at the point of comparison with the last quarter, it can be said their service revenue was slight increase.

This service revenue includes the revenue from Weibo Club and the sharing revenue from the apps or games developer, but as I said before, they have to enhance this area to industrialize more than now.

But on the other hand, of course, the ad revenue is the one of important business for Sina Weibo. So they recently announced that they will publish the ad API of Sina Weibo soon.

Their rival 'WeChat' already expressed that they would not like their user to use their platform as a marketing tool. So from this point of view, to become a social marketing platform may be a one of good method for the differentiation with them.


Source => Tencent IT, Lieyun Net

Alibaba will also enter the battle of the IM market in China. They have a plan to collaborate with China Mobile.

WeChat already have about 500 million users, and Yixin also got the good start last week. So the IM market in China is becoming more and more hot, but it seems that Alibaba, who is the giant of the EC market in China, also would like to enter this battle by re-promoting their IM tool 'Laiwang'.

There are the two verifications for this.

1. Alibaba CEO sent the internal email to start the bounty system of using 'Laiwang' to the all of staff last week.
According to the leak, their bounty system is for encouraging to use 'Laiwang' to their staff, and it is said that the most potent person can get 100,000 RMB (= 16,210USD) bonus.

2. Alibaba started to consult with China Mobile the chance of collaboration in this market.
According to the insider, Alibaba recently started to consult the possibility of collaboration with China Mobile by this 'Laiwang', and it may be that they would like to follow the success of Yixin.


Alibaba already acquired 18% share of Sina Weibo on April, and they already started to accelerate their social media solutions. But they may would like to get the killer tool of IM to accelerate more this area, so I think that its action is very natural.

But its Sina Weibo also have their IM tool 'Meyou', and a company that Sina invested before also recently publish the IM tool 'WeMeet'.

Alibaba and Sina will go to the each way in this area, or also will have the collaboration as same as Weibo... We have to continue watching their actions as ever.


Source => TechWeb, BiaNews

Yixin still have some problem, but it was a good turnout. In 24 hours after publishing, Yixin got more than a million users.

Last time, I introduced about 'Yixin' that is co-produced IM tool by China Telecom and Netease.

According to their official information, it made a good start just after its publishing, and Yixin got more than a million users in 24 hours.

And Yixin got the 1st ranking of social category in the App store that night, and it also got the 2nd ranking in all of free apps on there.

About the other number, there were more than 300,000 pictures in its social feature, and there were 1 million times SMS sending, and there were 400,000 times voicemail communications.

Actually, some user said that its voice quality is much better than WeChat, and my friends or colleagues also said that it seems it's better than WeChat.

As I said last time, they have a target that they will get more than 100 million users in the six months, but they announced a new target that they will get more than 10 million users till the end of this month.

But on the other hand, it's true that Yixin has a lot of trouble with registration, SMS communication, voicemail and so forth. About these troubles, they promised to solve as soon as possible on their official account of Sina Weibo.

There are some mortifying things other than these troubles. It's the registration from the oversea. Now there are some difficulties in the registration from oversea as follows:

- iOS version of Yixin cannot download from out of China.

*It seems that there is the regional limitation.

- The registration of Yixin is needed the mobile phone number of China.

- The menu of Yixin supports only simplified Chinese now.

*In the app store, they wrote that it supports English and simplified Chines, but actually it seems it doesn't support.

About the Android version of it, you can download its apk file from their official site, but there are still remains the problem of registration and its menu.

About this, there is nothing for it but to wait their correspondence.

According to the news, the stock price of Netease increased 20% compared to before publishing Yixin. It can be said that their start dash was successful, so let's watch their action and the market response from now on too.

Source => DF Daily, Netease economy

Two things that Sina Weibo have the problem.

Sina published the performance reporting in the second quarter yesterday, and some number of Sina Weibo also became clear with this.

The total revenue of Sina Weibo was about 37.7 million USD in the second quarter, and it increased 46.1% compared to the last quarter. Among the revenue, the advertising revenue was 30 million USD, and the service revenue was 7.7 million USD.

About the advertising revenue increased more than 50% compared to the last quarter, but the service revenue was slight increase.

According to the annual reporting in 2012, 77% of Sina Weibo revenue was earned from the advertising revenue, other 23% of revenue was earned from service revenue.
But the rate of the advertising revenue in this quarter was about 85.7%, so it can be said that their dependence on the advertising revenue is more and more running high.

I think that this dependence (in other words 'bias') is the first problem for Sina Weibo, and I think that they have to strengthen other revenue more, such as the collaboration with Alibaba (It means "Social Commerce").


The second problem is the low rate of active users.

They announced that their daily active users were 54 million people, but their total registered user was over than 500 million people. It means that the rate of daily active users was only about 10%.

According to the news, the recent daily active user of Facebook was 699 million people. Compared to them, it can be said that the daily active users rate of Sina Weibo is very low.

Increasing the rate of active users have been the long term problem for Sina Weibo, but it can be said that it is still midway.


According to the news, PifferJaffray recently estimated that the market value of Sina Weibo is 6 billion USD, but this number is more than the value when Alibaba acquired 18% share of Sina Weibo in 586 million USD. And according to the some resources, Sina Weibo intends to list stocks independently in the future.


We have to keep watching whether their plan will achieve or not as ever.


Source => TechWeb, Sina Tech

The battle of WeChat and Weibo in Social Commerce will be heating up moreover from now on.

Social media and Ecommerce are the hottest market in China, and according to the report by CNNIC, both users increased over 20% compared to the previous year.

And from the late last year, the fusion of social media and Ecommerce were gradually embodied, Sina Weibo actually started to provide the "Weibo Wallet", and they sold Xiaomi mobile on their platform.

Sina Weibo was invested by Alibaba at this April, but the first their collaboration was appeared at this time. It's called "Tuan Mai", and this is the site that the limited item or special priced item are being sold.

Now the limitation item or special priced items are sold one item per a day, but Sina Weibo wish to sell multiple those items on there in the future. But this is only the prologue of their collaboration, and it is said that the custom version of Weibo for Taobao will be released this month or next month.

On the other hand, WeChat also started to accelerate the fusion of WeChat and Ecommerce. As I explained before, WeChat will be added the linkage function with Ecommerce, and they will also formally provide the mobile payment function in the next version of it.

And though it's provide the third party vendor, the new linkage tool of WeChat and Ecommerce was also published now.

This tool is named "V Mall", and it can the user make easier to open their shops and sell the items on WeChat.

Tencent already has their own EC platform "QQ Wanggou", and also has their own payment system "Tenpay". And they already were providing them to their QQ Weibo from the past. So it's no doubt that they will be sure to accelerate this area from now on.

Social commerce is unfailingly the point getter for Weibo and WeChat. So we have to keep watching their actions in this market, and at the same time, we also have to keep the attention whether the other influencer will raise their head or not.

* I'm personally paying attention to the action of Baidu...

Source => ChinaByte, Ifeng net

WeChat and Weibo both are mainly accessed from mobile devices.

A data research company "DRATIO" published a research report of social media in China.

This report is written about the comparison of Sina Weibo and WeChat user, and there are some interesting trend. So I will explain the summary of this report.


1. Do you use Weibo or WeChat or both?

Weibo only     20.6%

WeChat only  22.4%

Both   57.0%







The over half of users use both services, but there is an interesting trend by the below picture that was categorized by age.

Only using Weibo users has turned out that the older ages have the higher rate, but I think that old users maybe use QQ as a communication tool instead of WeChat.


2. In the recent one month, how often did you use each service?

The highest utilization rate of WeChat is over 4 times in a day, and the highest utilization rate of Weibo is 3 to 4 times in a week.


3. How many hours do you averagely use each service in a day?

Less than 30 minutes is the highest rate of Weibo user's using hours, and 30 to 60 minutes is the highest rate of WeChat user's using hours.

The users who are using WeChat more than 4 hours exist 13.4%, so it seems that the using time of WeChat is relatively longer than using Weibo.


4. Which devices do you usually use for each service?

Mobile access is the most popular method of usage of both services, but this is a natural thing. Because as I explained before, mobile device already became the top of all method connecting to the internet in China. Furthermore, Tencent defines WeChat as a mobile communication tool, and Sina said that their more than 60% users have used mobile devices to access Sina Weibo.


5. Where do you usually use each service?

#1   at home
#2   at office
#3   at transportation facilities
#4   at public place
#5   at outside
#6   at lodgings
#7   at classroom
#8   other




As a result, more than 80% users have used each service at home. And it is a characteristic thing that using each service 'at office' is more than 'at transportation facilities'.


6. Which feature do you usually use on each service?

Though it's a natural thing, 82.5% of WeChat users usually use chat feature on it. And the characteristic thing is that very few users use the social feature of WeChat compared to Weibo. I think this is one of the most important fact when we would like to utilize each service for our business.


For capturing Chinese social media market, it is a very important thing that compares Weibo and WeChat, and understanding deeply each property. So I would like to continue introducing that point of view in future too.


Source => DRATIO

WeChat started to provide the mobile payment solution. Its first user is McDonalds.

As I explained before, WeChat will provide the linkage feature with EC in the next version 5.0. In addition to this, they provide the mobile payment solution on WeChat, and actually it's already provided by McDonalds.

  


At first, WeChat user have to become a follower of McDonalds account. After that they will provide a message that includes a link. And WeChat user click the link to get a card that is called "茶点卡", and after that the screen of above picture will be appeared.

And user click the button of "立即购买 (Buy Now)" on this screen, and pay 3 RMB through TENMPAY, user can get the "茶点卡 (Tea card)".


But at this time, this card has some restriction to use.
- User can use this card only from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
- User cannot use this card to buy coffee or some services.
- There is an expiration date. (3 months)


I don't know using this card has some merits compared to cash at this time, but I think it's a very interesting trend from the point of view that is the linkage of mobile payment and social media.

Sina Weibo also already started mobile payment solution on their platform, so the linkage of mobile payment and social media may become the one of the hot topics this year in China.


Source => TechWeb

The next version of WeChat will bring the two big impact.

Tencent WeChat team is now just preparing the next version of WeChat, and the some screenshot of them was leaked. Looking them, I think that this version will bring the two big impacts to users.

1. Linkage function with EC site.

WeChat already has the function of scanning the QR code, but they will add the function of scanning the bar code. Users can directly go to the EC site to check the price of the product that they scanned via this function.

As far as looking the above picture, this function will support Amazon China and Dangdang at this time. But Tencent also has their own EC site, so they maybe add the linkage function with it till the public version.

Social Ecommerce is a trend of this year in China, and the alliance of Sina Weibo and Alibaba also should head for realization of this, but it follows that WeChat will preempt to them.


2. Changing the display method of official accounts.

In the current version, the official accounts are independently displayed on Chat page. But from the next version, these official accounts will be displayed all in one piece as the menu of "Official account".

I think that it will be a big impact for marketer of WeChat. Because There is all the difference directly displayed in the top page and needed one more click.

As I explained before, Tencent WeChat team doesn't want users to use WeChat as a marketing tool. So this may be a one of step for it.



Other function will also be added to the new version of WeChat, but there is less impact than two things above.

I think that it may be high time to re-consider the method of using WeChat as a business tool.


Source => TechWeb, 36kr, Netease Mobile

Chinese monthly social media information sharing ranking: Sina Weibo gained the top position for the first time.

Jiathis who is providing the social distribution tools published the new monthly report as of May 2013.

                                        Share         Click Rate

#1  Sina Weibo           17.86%        26.84%

#2  Qzone                    16.51%        31.27%

#3  WeChat                 16.36%          0.02%

#4  Tencent Weibo       6.42%        11.31%

#5  Renren                     6.25%          1.98%

........

Sina Weibo gained the top position this month for the first time, but Qzone(It's the SNS that is provided by Tencent)  downgraded to the second place. WeChat gained the third position as same as last month, but its "click rate" is still very low.

It seems that the very low click rate of WeChat is caused to the property of themselves. Because the posts by official accounts and the posts in the "Moments" don't display the web URL as a link, and users cannot directly click it to access the web site.

 

So when we use WeChat as a marketing tool, we must not expect increasing the access on our website, we have to share the all of information only in the WeChat.

At this time, it can be said that Sina Weibo, Qzone and WeChat are the top 3 as the information sharing platform, but we have to continue watching the trend as ever.

Source => Jiathis

The ad revenue of Sina Weibo was 18.8 million USD, and 34% of them were from mobile ad.

Sina published the performance reporting in the first quarter few days ago, but some number of Sina Weibo was also become clear with this.

The total revenue of Sina Weibo was 25.8 million USD in the first quarter, but this detail is as follows:

Advertising --- 18.8 million USD (34% of them were from mobile ad.)
Revenue share from Game --- 5 million USD
Professional service (Weibo Club) --- 2 million USD

About 73% of their revenue were from advertising, but this reporting emphasized that their revenue of besides ad was rapidly increasing. I think that this phrase includes their will or wish to expand the revenue from that area.


By the way, how much does the revenue of Sina Weibo contribute to all revenue of Sina now? This answer is as follows:

Ad revenue from portal site     59.9%

Ad revenue from Weibo             14.9%

Revenue from Mobile services  12.6%

Service revenue from Weibo        5.6%
(*This means "Game" and "Professional Service")

Other      5.8%




This graph said that the total revenue of Sina Weibo contributed about 20% to the all revenue of Sina. Sina is now mainly focusing on the Weibo business, but it can be said that this graph proved the result that Sina Weibo made a certain contribution.

Alibaba joined the Sina Weibo team last month, but which action will they execute together from now on? Let's keep attention to their action as before.


Source => china.com, iResearch, Performance reporting by Sina

Facishare published the business version of WeChat. Is this a sign that the ESN market will accelerate in China again?

As you know, WeChat is the one of most popular communication tools in China. And many companies already use it as a marketing tool to develop the Chinese market.

And this time, Facishare started to provide the business version of WeChat.

    




This word of "business version" means that it is used as a corporate internal system like the enterprise social networking(ESN) tool.


Well, why isn't it provided by Tencent, but is provided by Facishare?


Tencent has provided the business version of QQ "Biz QQ" for a long time, they were seeking the business partner of it to accelerate its business. And the end of March, they targeted some companies as an its business partner, but it seems that Facishare was the one of them.

And on the other hand, Facishare is a company of providing ESN system in China, and they were invested from IDG last year as the series A.

QQ has over 800 million active users per a month, and actually people in China use it as a business communication tool. But the business version of QQ is not so popular compared to the generic QQ.

So Tencent was (is) seeking the business partner to accelerate the BtoB market, and it seems that this business version of WeChat is the next step of the business collaboration.


As I explained before, the ESN market is becoming gradually hot in China. And according to the report by CCW Research, the market scale of ESN increased 246% compared to the last year in 2012. And some researcher said that 2013 will become the year that the ESN market is dramatically growing in China.

How will they progress from now on? Let's keep attention to them as ever.


Source => Sina Weibo, 21CN, 21cbh

Jiathis published the new report of "Chinese social media information sharing ranking". WeChat was ranked in 3rd position.

Jiathis published the new report of "Chinese social media information sharing ranking" as of April 2013.

                                      Share         Click Rate
#1  Qzone                   15.59%        30.19%

#2  Sina Weibo           14.09%        24.05%

#3  WeChat                 12.82%          0.02%

#4  Renren                     7.80%          2.03%

#5  Tencent Weibo       7.11%       13.68%

........










Jiathis added WeChat as the object of ranking from this time, but WeChat was ranked in the 3rd place for the first time.


This represents the recent power of Wechat, but it has something in our mind that their click rate is much lower than Qzone or Sina Weibo.

The user number of WeChat will be shortly over 400 million people, and a lot of companies already use WeChat as a marketing tool. So this result maybe makes the marketing people nervous, but it's important that we will also continue to watch the trend of this after next month.


Source => Jiathis

The biggest Chinese SNS "Renren" have 280 million registered users. And they started to provide own chat tool "Tongxueshuo".

Renren is the one of biggest SNS provider in China, and they got the high popularity in the recent research as I introduced before. And according to a report, Renren have 280 million registered users as of the end of March.

User distribution map of area in China

East China : 31%

(Shanghai, Jiangsi, Zhejiang...)

South China : 17%

(Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi...)

North China : 15%

(Beijing, Hebei, Tianjin...)

Middle China : 12%

(Henan, Hubei, Hunan...)

Southwest China : 9%

(Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou...)

Northwest China : 7%

(Shaanxi, Qinghai, Gansu...)

And they have 110 million PC active users and 26 million mobile active users.

The ratio of male to female - 56% : 44%

User distribution by age:

90's or later     45%

80's                    35%

70's or earlier  20%

Next is the utilization rate by each mobile devices.

Android have 55.6% share, and they won the first place. But it seems that this share does not include access by feature phone, and it's not counted access to WAP page.

The next picture is the list of corporate accounts in Renren.

According to this report, there are 150,000 corporate accounts in Renren, and the user checks the 3 corporate pages daily on average.

The next picture is the summary of posting in a day.

The summary of daily post:

[Tweet]

From PC - 15.8 million times

From Mobile - 13.2 million times

[Picture]

From PC - 12.3 million times

From Mobile - 5.2 million times

[Diary]

From PC - 0.78 million times

From Mobile - 0.47 million times

The last picture is the data of tweet with location information.

According to this report, there are 1.7 million posts that include the location information daily in Renren, and its cumulative number is over 700 million posts.

Well, they recently started to provide the their own chat tools "Tongxueshuo".

 

It seems that this chat tool focuses to have the communication in the same university, and this user has to register their college before they start to use this.

* And they didn't support that users register the foreign college yet.

I would like to keep the attentions about the trend of Chinese SNS as same as WeChat or Weibo as ever.

Source => Sina Weibo, CNII

Alibaba and Sina formally co-announced that Alibaba will acquire 18% share of Sina Weibo in 586 million USD.

Today, Alibaba and Sina formally come to an agreement that Alibaba will invest in Sina Weibo, and Alibaba will acquire 18% share of Sina Weibo.

The press release by Sina said:


The two companies will cooperate in the areas of user account connectivity, data exchange, online payment and online marketing, among other things, and will explore new business models for social commerce based on the interactions of the hundreds of millions of users on Weibo and on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms. The strategic alliance is expected to generate approximately $380 million in advertising and social commerce services revenues in aggregate for Weibo over the next three years.

　　Separately, the Company announced that Alibaba, through a wholly owned subsidiary, has invested $586 million to purchase preferred and ordinary shares representing approximately 18% of Weibo on a fully-diluted basis. SINA has also granted an option to Alibaba to enable Alibaba to increase its ownership in Weibo to 30% on a fully-diluted basis at a mutually agreed valuation within a certain period of time in the future.


As I explained before, the rumor of this investment existed from last year. But because Sina Weibo provided their own payment system "Weibo Wallet", and there are some reasons, so it was said that the possibility of this rumor was slowing down.


Let's continue watching their specific action from now on.


Source => Press Release, Sina Tech

Two-thirds people login to a social media everyday in China, but there are only 3% people who are truly in difficulties that if they can't use any social media.

Chinese portal site "Sootoo" provided a interesting report as follows.

Q1. How often do you login to a social media service?

Several times a day     : 51.95%
        Once a day             : 15.06%
Several times a week  : 20.26%
       Once a week           : 3.90%
Less than once a week: 8.83%





This report said that about two-thirds people in China login to an any social media everyday. According to the latest report by CNNIC, many people use a any social media in China. So it can be said that this report followed up the credibility.


Q2. How long times use a social media in a day?

Less than one hour : 39.74%

1 to 2 hours: 40.00%

2 to 4 hours: 17.92%

More than 4 hours : 2.34%





This report said that almost 80% people use a social media less than 2 hours in a day.


Q3. Which social media services do you usually use?

Qzone  : 80.86%
Sina Weibo :  78.72%
Renren : 71.43%
Tencent Weibo :  60.45%
WeChat :  51.83%
Pengyou : 11.45%
Douban :  10.04%
Facebook :  5.45%
Kaixin :  4.96%
Other :  4.05%



This result is very interesting. I thought that the ranking of WeChat is higher than Tencent Weibo, but the result was different at this time.
And other unexpected thing is that the utilization rate of Renren was higher than my expect. Actually, Renren is the biggest SNS provider in China, but the interests of Chinese people is moving from SNS to Weibo or WeChat in few years. So its result is unexpected, and the big difference of RenRen and Kaixin's utilization rate was also unexpected.


4. Which purpose do you use a social media?

To contact with friends : 74.03%
To watch the video or post : 72.99%
To kill time :  63.12%
For hobby :  59.22%
To watch the hot topic :  54.55%
To post own mind :  45.06%
To expand personal connections :  38.70%
To enjoy games :  22.75%
To enjoy apps : 21.56%
To send a gift :  20.38%
For business :  15.58%
To join a event :  10.90%
Other :  0.95%

The answer of enjoying games or apps was lower than my expect. Sina Weibo have provided many games on their platform for a long time, and WeChat also have a plan to provide games on their platform as same as LINE...


Q5. Which devices do you usually use when you login a social media?

Mobile phone :  81.18%

PC :  69.35%

Tablet :  25.81%

Other :  11.83%





As I reported before, mobile devices is already the most popular method to access the internet in China. As a result, it follows that this fact also apply to in case of social media.


Q6. Why did you start using a social media?

Own thoughts :  23.65%
By the recommendation of friends : 26.35%
Many friend already use it :  45.95%
Can contact easily with friends :  43.92%
To expand personal connections :  8.11%
To get the information :  18.24%

Other :  4%


This result said that the almost half people started a social media by the reason related with friends.


Q7. If you weren't able to use a social media, how will you feel?

It's very inconvenient and unacceptable :  3%
Feeling not good, but acceptable : 51%
Feeling nothing at first, but feeling inconvenient not good later :  23%
Already not using it for a long time, so feeling nothing :  18%
Other :  5%

As mentioned in the introduction, two-thirds people use a social media everyday in China. But there are only 3% people who will be truly in trouble with not to use a social media. It's also an unexpected result.


Well, I'm very interested in this result, and furthermore I also would like to look the result in other countries :)


Source : Sootoo