Sina's microblogging site Weibo said today third-quarter net loss shrank from a year ago to $5.2 million, after revenue rose beyond expectations due to higher advertising income.
Weibo's revenue jumped 58 percent year on year to $84.1 million from the same period a year ago, with advertising income from mobile channels making up 44 percent of total ads income, the company said in a stock exchange filing.
Weibo's monthly active users by the end of September rose 36 percent from a year ago to 167 million.
"Weibo's mobile advertising income and commercialization process, especially on the smartphone channels, are under a smooth progress," said Weibo chairman Charles Chao.
Revenue at Sina's portal businesses rose 8 percent from a year ago to US$198.6 million and profit jumped to US$133.6 million from $25.4 million a year earlier due to a one-off gain from the sale of part of the company's investment in Alibaba.
Weibo projects revenue to come in at between $102 million and US$105 million in the fourth quarter this year.
Advertising income from Weibo's microblogging post feeds more than quadrupled to $22.8 million as it added a number of advertising packages for small and medium-sized merchants to sell products or services to their followers on Weibo.
Weibo also launched a payment system to lure smartphone users and drive growth from value-added services, following moves of Alibaba's payment affiliate Alipay and Tencent's widely used WeChat payment services.
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