Thanks to Temu, US Meta Soars... While China's Weibo Sales Remain Flat
Operating profit actually declines by 1.5%
US Meta China division sales jump twofold
Chinese social networking service (SNS) company Weibo's revenue remained flat last year. While Meta's performance doubled due to Temu's aggressive advertising spending on Chinese online platforms, Weibo could not escape its sluggish trend.
On the 14th, Weibo announced that its revenue last year reached $1.76 billion (approximately 2.3267 trillion KRW), representing a 1% increase year-on-year excluding exchange rate factors. The annual adjusted operating profit was $592.1 million, down 1.5% during the same period. The operating margin improved by 1 percentage point to 34% from 33% the previous year. As of the end of the fourth quarter, monthly active users numbered 598 million, a net increase of 11 million over one year. Daily active users reached 257 million, a net increase of 5 million during the same period.
The company explained that the advertising business showed signs of recovery in the fourth quarter, leading to an overall improvement in performance. Weibo's advertising revenue in the fourth quarter was $404 million excluding exchange rate factors, up 5% from the previous year. On an annual basis, it was $1.53 billion, marking only a 1% increase during the same period.
Wang Gaofei, CEO of Weibo, said during a conference call regarding last year's performance, "Due to uncertainties in the macroeconomic and industry environment, the recovery of advertising market demand was relatively unstable," adding, "Some industry clients' annual marketing budgets were lower than initially expected, which affected the overall growth rate of the advertising business." Weibo's stock price, listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange in the United States, fell 1.96% to $9.51 on the day.
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On the other hand, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, saw explosive revenue growth last year thanks to Temu's advertising offensive in China. Temu is a shopping platform of Chinese e-commerce company Pinduoduo and ranked first in U.S. app downloads last year. According to The Wall Street Journal, Temu paid Meta about $2 billion in advertising fees last year, becoming Meta's largest advertiser. Meta's revenue from its China division last year totaled $13.69 billion, double that of 2022. Bernstein Research estimates that Temu spent $3 billion on marketing alone last year.
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