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Weibo: Growth Is More Sustainable Than The Market Thinks

Oct 18, 2016

Weibo is a Chinese social media platform that is growing rapidly,both financially and in terms of users, with no signs of slowing down.Weibo's international initiatives and its unique position in the market are driving this growth.Although Weibo is currently quoting at a premium,several of his colleagues,this premium given his recent angemessen performance.Weibo is not a real competition in terms of function and is protected from foreign competition by China's Great Firewall.

Of course,Weibo's future growth will be driven by the growth of the user base in China and the continuous shift towards digital advertising.At the same time,Weibo is driven by less obvious factors for the market:its growing international presence and its close relationship with the media and the entertainment industry.

Weibo is a Chinese microblogging platform comparable to a combination of Facebook and Twitter.It is one of the 3 main social networking platforms in China and has 376 million active users per month.Weibo is particularly popular with Internet users between 20 and 29 years old,with a bachelor's degree or higher and in urban areas.The platform generates revenue by offering advertising solutions to its large customer base.

Weibo's 87.07% revenue in 2016 generates the majority of its revenue from advertising and marketing. Within advertising and marketing revenues in 2016, 10% of Alibaba and 15% of Sina and related parties were made, but Weibo is beginning to reduce its dependence on its largest investor and its previous parent company, exploring new partnerships with third parties. Over the past five years, Weibo has significantly increased the gross margin from 30% to 74%, but most importantly, the operating margin from -148% to 21% and the profit margin from -155% to 16%. These improvements demonstrate that Weibo is overcoming its growing efforts to become a profitable company and is constantly improving its ability to monetize its platform.

Weibo has always taken into account international expansion since 2013, allowing new users to use their Facebook accounts. It is also considered throughout the world as an important advertising platform. 29% of Fortune 500 companies have a Weibo account since the end of February 2012. Currently, Weibo not only has a website in English, but also an international mobile application available for download on Android and Apple products. As companies and international organizations continue to realize the presence of Weibo in the Chinese market and turn to advertising solutions, Weibo will be able to better monetize its user base and advertising system.

This shows that weibo has its huge business potential in the international market and there is also a huge business opportunity for enterprises.Paymentship will not give up this opportunity,paymentship will scoop out the potential value of WEIBO to expand its business.