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Sina is struggling to finds its way in a mobile world. To make things even more difficult, Sina needs to walk a fine line with China's strict censorship laws. To help Fools understand the complex inter-workings of this company, we've put together a brief slideshow on what Sina does, how it makes its money, and what future prospects the company is working towards.
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April 7, 2023
1
Is SINA The of China?
In the early 2000s, SINA was the “Yahoo of China”. As a web portal, SINA partnered with online media companies and local newspapers to deliver content on everything – from political to entertainment news. The company makes money from multimedia ads.
April 7, 2023
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Its Portals Are Moneymakers
2009 2010 2011
64%
72%
76%
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SINA.com and SINA.cn are the company’s cash cow. As China continues to modernize and ad dollars move from offline to online, SINA has seen its revenues increase accordingly. As of last fiscal year (2011), SINA earned $76.7 million in revenue.
SINA breaks down reveneu by “Advertising” and “Non-Advertising Revenue.Through Fiscal Year 2011, Weibo does not count towards advertising budget.
April 7, 2023
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Falling Behind Competitor - QQ.com
SINA was the #2 most visited site in China back in Nov. 2005. Conglomerate Tencent and it’s web portal QQ.com has beat out SINA. SINA has dropped to #4.
Source 1 : http://newsletters.fool.com/18/coverage/issues/2005/11/01/03.aspxSource 2: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/CN
Baidu was and is the #1 site in China. Taobao.com, an e-commerce site is #3 as of Jan. 2013.
#1 Web Portal in 2013 and Beyond!
April 7, 2023
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The Portal Is Dying
How can we become the ‘entrance’ to the mobile internet — we’re all bewildered by that, and we’re anxious or perhaps even frightened by it. If we can’t become that ‘entrance’ then the value of our business and our market share will not change [i.e., improve] significantly.
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/sina-vp-wang-gaofei-talks-stats-weibo-woes/
- SINA Vice-chair Wang Gaofei , Aug. 9 2012
In Fool Speak: SINA can’t become a web portal on mobile if mobile users don’t need it. They have content apps.
April 7, 2023
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SINA Must Diversify Its Revenue Streams
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/comparing-revenue-chinas-major-internet-portals-tencent-kicking-ass-sina-872/
There are 564 million internet users, but mobile is quickly becoming the platform of choice with 420 million mobile users.
Most web portal companies have diversified beyond desktop-based revenue. Unfortunately, SINA is finding it difficult to monetize mobile.
Revenue Breakdown
Best available data from Q1 2012 shown here for relative comparison.
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/social-media-and-social-marketing-china-stats-2013/
April 7, 2023
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Here Comes Weibo – the “Twitter of China”
SINA launched Weibo.com back in 2009, and the site just came out with a partial English version in January 2013.
Though Weibo.com includes gaming, music, and other services, “Weibo” is a general term for micro-blogging, but many use the word to refer to SINA’s service specifically.
Just like Twitter, Weibo allows users to post messages, follow other users and repost a user’s comment.
Weibo users can also post audio comments, view threaded comments, and post emoticons.
April 7, 2023
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SINA’s Weibo Ad Revenue Is Growing
2nd Qtr 2012 3rd Qtr 2012
10%
16%
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SINA makes money from Weibo through online ads (like the NBA ad above), special services for corporate and VIP accounts and social gaming. Weibo’s percentage of SINA’s ad revenue is small, but accelerating. Weibo’s ad revenue spiked from 10% to 16% of advertising revenue over last quarter.Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/16/net-us-sina-results-idUSBRE8AE1VL20121116
April 7, 2023
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Weibo Users Are Coming Online In THE MILLIONS
2010 2011 20120
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Weibo’s users have grown significantly over the past three years. Weibo has 424 million users; for comparison, Twitter has about 640 million users.
Source: http://www.livescience.com/26058-ford-car-apps-china.html
April 7, 2023
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Still, Weibo Needs To Expand Even Faster
SINA Weibo is growing, but it can’t afford to let up. The company just launched an English version of its website to compete with Tencent Weibo.
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/netease-weibo-260-million-users-numbers/
Tencent Wiebo
SINA Weibo
Netease Weibo
0 100 200 300 400 500
Millions of Users
April 7, 2023
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Where Is SINA Now?
The company is at a crossroads.
With declining website use and difficulty monetizing Weibo, SINA is doing everything it can to become a
mobile-first company…
Here are four ways SINA might secure a profitable future.
April 7, 2023
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Building a Domestic “Weibo” Network
In July, SINA partnered with Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) to integrate Weibo into Baidu’s new cloud services – including its new mobile operating system.
In return, Baidu became SINA’s default search provider across SINA’s services.
In the same month, SINA partnered with an online TV provider to launch a “social television” service. By expanding content offerings online, SINA hopes to retain Weibo users.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-12/sina-offers-web-tv-service-to-win-china-social-networkers.html
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/baidu-sina-partner-mobile-search-cloud-computing/
April 7, 2023
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Building an International “Weibo” Network
In Sept., Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) latest Chinese version of iOS came preloaded with share buttons for SINA Weibo, much like Facebook and Twitter share buttons.
iOS6 users can post to SINA Weibo from their camera app, photos, Apple Maps, Safari and Apple's Game Center .
At the Consumer Electronic Show this month, Ford (NYSE: FD) announced a list of new voice-activated car apps in its latest infotainment car system – and SINA Weibo made the list.
In June, SINA signed an agreement with social-gaming company Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA) to offer the popular game “Draw Something” on under Weibo Games.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-12/sina-offers-web-tv-service-to-win-china-social-networkers.html
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/ford-sina-weibo-support/
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/apples-ios-6-sina-weibo-integration-china/
April 7, 2023
13
Copying Its Way Into The Future
In Nov., SINA launched “Wei Renmai” or “Weibo Connections”. The LinkedIn-like product allows you to connect with “people”, “companies”, and “opportunities”. You can also place people into different networking circles.
In July, SINA cloned a popular, Silicon Valley mobile social network and renamed it “Meyou”. The Meyou app is akin to Facebook’s mobile app, but with a more intuitive design and mobile-first experience. The app only lets you connect to at most 50 friends.
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/sina-meyou-path-clone-app/
Source: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/12/15/1-company-vying-to-be-the-linkedin-of-china.aspx
April 7, 2023
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Investing in Your Location
In July, SINA launched iMaps (“Love Car Maps”) for Android and iOS.
iMaps uses Weibo to help users in three ways: finding gas stations and parking spaces, getting routes and traffic guidance, crowdsourcing route reports. With your data, SINA may soon launch more location-based tools to rake in more earnings. Source: http://www.techinasia.com/sina-imap-app-for-chinese-drivers/
April 7, 2023
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But before you invest…
…be wary…
April 7, 2023
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SINA Censors…But It’s Not That Bad
Search results for members of the Communist Party, and controversial people, are delayed on Weibo for about a week so censors can make changes to posts before large groups of people can see them.
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/sina-weibo-censorship-in-2012-review/
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/netease-weibo-260-million-users-numbers/
- Image source: Wikimedia Commons
To comply with China’s censorship laws, SINA employs about 1,000 workers to censor posts and even delete accounts. However, all Chinese companies must enact similar censorship measures.
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So What Does Censorship Mean For SINA?
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/netease-weibo-260-million-users-numbers/
But government censorship is a complex issue. Harvard researchers found that Beijing actually allows government criticism to shine through on some blogs
“This is a city government [Yulin City, Shaanxi] that treats life with contempt, this is government officials run amuck, a city government without justice, a city government that delights in that which is vulgar, a place where officials all have mistresses, a city government that is shameless with greed, a government that trades dignity for power, a government without humanity, a government that has no limits on immorality, a government that goes back on its word, a government that treats kindness with ingratitude, a government that cares nothing for posterity. . . ”
- Unknown, Source Website Unknown
The Government Citizen Attitudes
84%"Don't Care"
84% of China’s Netizens have an “open attitude” towards “personal privacy” online.
Source: http://www.techinasia.com/social-media-and-social-marketing-china-stats-2013/
