Data show that the commercialization of micro-blogging process is progressing steadily

According to Hong Kong media reports, Sina's plan for the second quarter of this year to let its microblog listed in the United States, proposed to raise about 500 million U.S. dollars. Sina Weibo has declined to comment on the rumors of Sina's microblog listing.

Profit is the foundation of listing

In the fourth quarter of last year, Sina Weibo revenue topped 70 million dollars for the first time and achieved 3 million U.S. dollars in operating profits. Among them, micro-blog advertising revenue reached 56 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 163% per cent, the chain growth of more than 28%. Non-advertising business revenue reached 15.4 million U.S. dollars, the year-on-year growth of 114%, the chain growth of nearly 60%.

In the quarter, Sina Weibo's revenue from Alibaba grew less than 20%, to $23.5 million. Sina estimates that the future of Taobao advertising accounted for will be further narrowed, while the brand advertising owners gradually open. This advertising strategy is also in order to and Sina Portal advertising revenue to partition.

"In the future, we will see more advertising and promotional information on the microblogging platform," said Cao Chao, CEO and chairman of Sina. "He said that the current Sina Weibo mainly through intermediaries to sell, the need to pay a certain intermediary division, in the future can be improved in this regard, thereby improving profitability."

Chao said that the growth of micro-blogging active users in the slowdown, the daily active user growth of 36%, the chain growth of only 4.2%, Sina Weibo since the establishment of the lowest year-on-year and the chain growth, "although the growth slowdown, but we are still maintaining growth." ”

It is reported that Sina Weibo in the first-tier city performance tends to stabilize, the main growth of space from the two or three-tier cities. Internal data show that the microblogging two or three-line urban users grow rapidly, in the overall user share of 43%.

The earnings of Weibo have opened the market's suspicions about the pace of its listing, with media reports that it will be listed in the U.S. in the second quarter of this year. Sina has no comment on this. But analysts pointed out that Sina Weibo IPO has been on the agenda, its four-quarter profit for the listing laid a good foundation, Sina will also maintain its holding position on Sina Weibo.

The portal will accelerate the transition

In the micro-blog revenue growth, led by the overall revenue of Sina also showed a good situation. Last year, Sina revenue of 665.1 million U.S. dollars, year-on-year growth of 26%, to achieve a net profit of 45.1 million U.S. dollars.

Notably, earnings showed that Sina's cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments amounted to $1.8682 billion by the end of 2013.

Sina said that the micro-blogging earnings so that Sina can devote more resources to the transformation of the portal business, especially the abundant cash reserves for Sina in the video, mobile Internet and other areas of accelerated layout to provide protection.

Chao said that through the collaboration of Sina and Weibo, Sina will expand in such fields as Internet finance, online sports and so on.

According to Chao, Sina has formed an Internet financial team in the interior, has cooperated with a number of companies, and invested in the introduction of innovative financial trading products enterprises. "In the future, we will form an independent internet financial sector to grasp the opportunities of internet finance through mergers and acquisitions and in-house platforms." ”

Online sports, the latest release of the December 2013 Mobile Sports Information category app active users rankings, Sina Sports to 3.704 million households topped the list, more than the second more than 3 million. Sina News in the News class client ranking also rose to fourth place.

Last April, Sina homepage First to make a revision, and then gradually extended to finance, technology and other channels, the revised portal more emphasis on personalization, localization, social and mobile. At the same time, the Sina portal has also adjusted the architecture, dividing the portal channel into commercial channels, integrated channels and media channels. Sina's portal intends to make more attempts at verticality.