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 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

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

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

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

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

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

Sina Weibo enter into the mobile payment market. Do they have a chance of success?

Sina Weibo published their own payment system "Weibo Wallet" last December, but recently they also published its service for mobile users.

Now they provide only the Android client and mobile browser version, but they said that they will also provide its iPhone and Windows client soon.

I downloaded the Android client and tried it.

  

It can be charged the money from bank, mobile phone and so forth, and the user can pay the electric, water and gas bills from it as same as the PC version.


According to the recent report by CNNIC, mobile payment user is rapidly increasing in China. Furthermore, MIIT estimated that the scale of mobile payment market in China will be about 24 billion USD in 2013, and its market will continue 40% growth in the next few year.

Sina Weibo would like to monetize soon, and also in the view of its market growth, it's make sense that they will enter into the mobile payment market. But there are many strong rival like Alipay in this market. Furthermore, Unionpay and each banks are also watching vigilantly for a chance.

Sina Weibo have over 500 million users now, so "Weibo Wallet" user may be smoothly increasing. But the view of real business, I think that they will continue facing the tough challenge for a while. Let's keep attention to their actions.


Source => Weibo Wallet, ChinaIRN

Total revenue in 2012 of Sina Weibo was 66 million USD. Its 77% was from advertisement revenue.

Recently Sina published the performance reporting in the fourth quarter, and they also published some report that is related with Sina Weibo.

Sina announced that the total revenue of Sina Weibo in 2012 was 66 million USD, and its 77% was from advertisement revenue. And according to them, mobile advertisement was rapidly growing, its revenue share already exceeded 30% of total advertisement revenue.

Sina Weibo started to publish advertisement space to the public from last second quarter, and they also started to provide "Advertising Center" to the corporate users. So they will also continue to accelerate their advertisement solution as ever.


The other 23% of revenue was from services on their platform, such as games or "Weibo Club" and so forth. According to them, the revenue of these service was also rapidly growing. So I would like to keep attention that these services how contribute to their revenue-up as ever.



They also published that the number of registration users were more than 500 million people, and its active users per was 46.2 million people per a day. Of course this number increased compared to the previous year, but the speed of increasing became more and more slow.

So the overseas deployment for increasing their user number and keeping the number of active user will become the key factor for them in future.


Source => TechWeb, China News net

Sina Weibo started to provide their payment system "Weibo Wallet".

A few days ago, Sina Weibo started to provide their payment system "Weibo Wallet(微博钱包)".

Its account is tied up the account of Sina Weibo, and its user not just can buy some goods, but also can pay the utility expenses.

It can charge money from bank, mobile phone, Weibi and so forth.

Now they have a campaign with Xiaomi, they announced on their top page that they will start to sell the new mobile phone of Xiaomi from December 21.

I said that Sina Weibo already started monetization before, they may start to enhance their EC solutions in earnest. I will keep watching its action as ever.


Source => TechWeb

Alibaba rumored that they would like to get 15-20% stock of Sina Weibo.

According to the some news source,  the biggest EC company in China Alibaba rumored to make an investment in Sina Weibo.


Now the enterprise value of Sina Weibo is estimated 2-3 billion USD, but Alibaba rumored that they wish get 15-20% stock of Sina Weibo.

Sina Weibo is a group company of Sina group, but they are a independent company to provide Weibo services.


I think this investment is good for both side.

Firstly, Sina Weibo would like to accelerate their monetization, and EC business on their Weibo is the one of key factor to do it. Actually, they already started some investment for the EC business, but they don't have enough environment compared to Tencent.

On the other hand, Alibaba is the top position of B2B EC market in China, and its group company Tmall and Taobao are the top position of consumer EC market in China. But the other EC company is also catching up with them day by day, so they would like to add the platform of EC. Furthermore, Sina Weibo have 400 million users in the third quarter, so it will be a strong marketing platform for them.


This is the stage of rumor, but this may be surprisingly decided more quickly than our expectation.

Source => IT home, Tencent IT

Tencent WeChat V.S. Sina Weibo [INFOGRAPHIC]

CIC published the infographic that is written about "Tencent WeChat V.S. Sina Weibo" as follows:

Last month Tencent CEO Pony MA said that WeChat user exceed 200 million people, but it takes 20 months to exceed 200 million. On the other hand, the term of Sina getting 200 million users took 22 months, so it can be said that they are almost even.



Recently Tencent make WeChat advancing the out of Chinese market, and Sina also already released its English version, and they hope to advance to the out of Chinese market.

At this time, the war in Chinese market looks like in a drawn match. Well how about will be the out of China? We have to keep attentions as before.


Source => CIC

Eguan: Social Media Apps for Android Download Ranking in China.

Eguan published a data of "Social Media Apps for Android Download Ranking" as follows:

WeChat already exceeded 100 million times download. As I explained before, WeChat user exceed 200 million people in the end of September, so I think this is relevant number.

In this data, the second position is Sina Weibo. Sina Weibo totally has 368 million users, and 69% users of among them access it by mobile phone, so this is also relevant number.

The service of third and fourth position is also provided by Tencent. As you know, Tencent have the strength in Chinese social media market.


Unexpectedly, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ was also ranked in this data. As you know, Chinese government has blocked these service, so it can be said that many user  is accessing these service via VPN service :)


Source => Eguan

"The chronological table of Sina Weibo", the tracks of their 3 years.

Today is the third anniversary of Sina Weibo. They launched their service on Aug-28 2009, but let's look back over their 3 years tracks :

[2009]
May   Sina CEO Charles Chao published the plan of their Weibo service on their event in Chengdu.

Aug-28    Sina Weibo started their service as a public beta.

Nov-2     The registered users of Sina Weibo exceeded 1,000,000 people.



[2010]
Aug-28   Their first anniversary (The registered users exceeded 30,000,000 people ).

End of Oct   Their registered users exceeded 50,000,000 people.

Nov-25   They started to deliver community feature called "Weiqun".



[2011]
Mar-2   They announced that their registered users already exceeded 100,000,000.

Apr-7   They changed their domain to "weibo.com".

May-13  They started to deliver certified users ("V") service.

Jul-21   They released special Android smartphone with HTC.

Jul-27   The follower of "Yao Chen" exceeded 10,000,000 people.

Jul-28   They started to deliver their light-blog "Qing".

Oct-21   They intensified the search service on their Weibo as "s.weibo.com".

Nov-3   They started to deliver the Weibo number called "Wei Hao".



[2012]
Mar-1   Instagram start to support Sina Weibo.

Mar-1   It started that the search result from Sina Weibo was displayed on Baidu.

Apr   They started to deliver ads service on their platform to the public.

May-9   They started to deliver corporate page version 2.

May-16   They announced that their registered users become 324,000,000 people.

May-28   They published the new rules for users on their Weibo.

Jun-8   They formally started the revenue sharing model between game developers and Sina Weibo( the rate of 7 to 3).

The middle of Jun   They formally published their LBS platform to the public.




Source => TechWeb

Sina Weibo already started monetization, and their ads revenue was 10 million USD in the second quarter.

Sina published their statement in the second quarter, and this statement said that whole ads revenue of Sina company was 103.1 million USD.

In this ads revenue, ads revenue of Sina Weibo was 10 million USD in the same period. And Sina also said that its ads revenue consist 75 to 80% of existing customer and around 20% of new customer.

In this way, they started monetization, but Sina CEO Charles Chao said that Sina Weibo will start the promotional tweet in the fourth quarter and accelerate the action of their virtual money "Weibi" .


They also said that Sina Weibo already have 368 million users in the same period, and its daily active users were 36.5 million people. And the ratio of their mobile access was 69%, but 20% of this user also use PC for accessing to Sina Weibo, so it can be said the ratio of using only mobile was around 40%.

As I reported before, China's internet industry also rapidly increasing mobile internet user, so it can be said that the challenge of Sina Weibo is accelerating mobile solution in addition to promotional tweet and virtual money.



Source => Sohu IT, SCOL

Sina Weibo started internal test of like BBS site "Weiba".

Sina Weibo started internal test of like BBS site "Weiba".

But it's only internal test, so user who can use this service is limited like as follows.

According to the news, this service is similar to "Baidu Tieba". Baidu Tieba is a that is a completely user-driven portal site that user can post the text, image, video and so forth.

Sina Weibo started a membership service last Tuesday, but they have to do not only monetize but also diversification of their service to increase their active users.

Weiba will become a key factor of their activity or not, we have to keep attention to them.


Original article => PConline

Sina Weibo formally started "Weibo Club" as a professional service.

Sina Weibo formally started "Weibo Club" as a professional service yesterday.

This is as professional service, delivered 10RMB(= 1.58 USD) per a month. Of course, they prepared an annual discount, it costs 108 RMB(= 17.12 USD, 10 percent off).

They also prepared various payment method, it also support charged by via mobile fee, by their virtual money "Weibi", union pay and so forth.

And this "Weibo Club" prepared 6 degree grade for member, and each grade member have different privilege.

For example, this member can follow over 2,000 accounts, they can get limited special icon and wallpaper, and they can try some new functions earlier than general users.


Well, Sina Weibo accelerated their monetize, so we have to pay attention that this service go well or not, and about their other actions.


Source => Weibo Club page

Things that happen on internet every 60 seconds in China [INFOGRAPHIC]

CIC published "Things that happen on internet every 60 seconds in China".

 - 69,444 tweets on Sina Weibo

 - 694 "Like" button pushed on Mogujie

 - 650 new visitors access to Meilishuo

 - 5,555 luggages are shipped from Taobao-Jishi and Tmall

 - 190,259 RMB are trade on Tmall

 - 166,667 video are watched on Youku

 - 600 check in on Jiepang

 - 2,777,778 RMB are trade via Alipay

 - 208 products are sold on 360buy

 - 19,026 RMB are trade on Juhuasuan(Group buying by Taobao)

 - 3,533 new visitors access to Tianya BBS

 - 1,299 new visitors access to MOP








Original article => CIC account on Sina Weibo