Over the other side of the world in China, the social media landscape is very much unrecognisable from our own. Established western platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram hold no domain in these foreign lands; the population instead looks to local offerings such as WeChat and Weibo, the latter of which looks set to make some pretty substantial investments in the near future in an effort to secure the growth of the business.
Weibo is in many ways similar to Twitter, albeit far more
profitable than the famously money-shy western alternative, operating at its
core as a micro-blogging platform. The site boasts 159 million daily users (361
million monthly) and a reported quarterly profit in the region of $101.1
million, rising from $73.5 million in the previous quarter. With that in mind,
it came as no surprise to hear them announce last week their intent to offer up
to $700 million in convertible senior notes in order to finance “working
capital needs and potential acquisitions of complementary businesses.”
There is no word as of yet on any specific acquisitions to
company is looking to make, although it is expected for them to focus on
Chinese enterprises in the fields of video and entertainment, in which Weibo is
currently achieving solid traction, and ad tech, in which the company has
already made some recent investments.
The company themselves credit their substantial jumps in
revenue (the previous quarter had seen profits increase by 184% year-on-year)
to its surging video and mobile ads business, complimented by the platform’s reputation
within its home country as a gathering place for celebrity news amongst the
younger generations.
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