Weibo Profit In Line With Estimates, Revenue Beats

(RTTNews) - Weibo Corp (WB), a Chinese social media platform, on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter net earnings of $4.6 million or $0.02 per share compared with $21.6 million or $0.11 per share last year.

Excluding items, adjusted earnings for the quarter were $0.04 per share compared with $0.02 per share a year ago.

Revenues for the quarter were up 47% at $105.2 million compared with $71.4 million in the prior year, helped mainly by growth in advertising.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $0.04 per share on revenues of $103.9 million for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

"In 2014, Weibo experienced the largest user increase since our inception, as we continued to focus on building the leading social media in China...2015 will be another high growth year for mobile and social marketing in China, and we are well positioned to take advantage of this trend," said Weibo CEO Gaofei Wang.

For the first quarter, the company expects revenues of $93 million to $96 million, while analysts expect $94.4 million.

Also Weibo said its Chief Financial Officer Bonnie Yi Zhang will assume that position in SINA Corp (SINA), Weibo's parent company, effective immediately. At the same time, Zhang's counterpart in SINA, Herman Yu, will become CFO of Weibo.