[photopress:sinaad.jpg,full,alignright]Sina.com, China’s most popular Web portal, has seen its third-quarter profit rise 18 percent on strong advertising growth.
Quarterly earnings were $10.7 million which was above forecasts by analysts. Advertising revenue rose 42 percent to $32.7 million compared with the same period last year.
Sina chief executive Charles Chao said in a conference call, ‘We are becoming the best media platform to reach high-end customers in China. We generate most of our traffic from our high-quality content channels, which is very different from most Internet portals around the world.’
China has the world’s second-largest population of Internet users following the United States, with more than 123 million people online. But in financial terms, its market is much smaller in proportion.
Sina launched a broadband video service in the third quarter with 30 channels and will expand popular sports offerings, with plans to launch a channel devoted to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Sina’s leading competitor, Web portal Sohu.com Inc., said last week its third-quarter earnings fell 18 percent to $6.6 million because of stock options costs. But it also said it had strong advertising growth, with revenue up 29 percent.
Source: Shenzhen Daily