In a conversation with Christine Tan of CNBC, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA), Charles Chao, has discussed the currents plans for his company and the future outlook.
Chao stated that if a company wants to make a lot of money it should create a big platform. Therefore SINA plans to spend more energy and money focusing primarily on user growth.
Hence it is clear that the company’s efforts would be going towards enhancement of its user base and user activities on its Weibo platform. With the current focus on user growth, by 2016, the company would be able to show good profits.
But there are other challenges for SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA). The company has a severe competitor in Tencent’s messaging application, WeChat. WeChat is a strong rival in the Chinese market for Weibo. When asked about the competition from WeChat, Chao wholeheartedly agreed, saying: “Of course. No question about that.” According to him, the internet market in China is definitely very competitive. He goes on further to say”
“[…] There is no other internet market in the world that is as competitive as China’s internet market.”
However, in the same breath, he continues to clarify that there are major product differentiators when one speaks of the two products. WeChat is a private platform that allows sharing of communication among the users, whereas Weibo is of the nature of a public platform that facilitates sharing of content. This makes Weibo more media centric than WeChat. But there is no gainsaying the fact that, there would be competition, which will continue to grow in the China internet market and SINA cannot ignore it.
Tybourne Capital Management, led by Eashwar Krishnan initiated a position in SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA), in the first quarter and now holds 335,500 shares worth $20.27 million. Kerr Neilson’s Platinum Asset Management raised its stake in the same quarter by 4% to 4.36 million shares, with a reported value of $263.23 million.
Disclosure: none
Suggested Reading:
The 10 Best Value Investment Blogs that Every Investor Must Read
The 5 Most Expensive Cars To Insure in the World
