Sina Corp. (Nasdaq: SINA) reported a decline in adjusted earnings for the first quarter when revenues of the China-based online media firm increased 8%. The company’s stock lost sharply early Thursday after the results missed analysts’ forecast.
Net income attributable to shareholders, on an adjusted basis, dropped to $0.40 per share from $0.47 per share last year. Reported profit was $33.08 million or $0.46 per share, compared to $28.69 million or $0.38 per share in the first quarter of 2018. It was weaker than the outcome projected by Wall Street.
Net revenues moved up 7.8% to $475.14 million in the March quarter. Adjusted revenue came in at $472.5 million. Analysts were expecting a slightly higher top-line number. At $388 million, advertising revenue was up 6% year-over-year. The growth was driven by higher advertising and marketing revenues a the company’s microblogging website Weibo, which was partially offset by a decline in portal advertising revenues.
Advertising revenues rose 6% helped by strong performance by the company’s microblogging website Weibo
There was an 18% growth in non-advertising revenue, owing mainly to revenues derived from Weibo’s live streaming business acquired in the previous quarter and higher revenues from Sina’s fin-tech businesses.
Weibo Beats on Earnings
Earlier, Weibo (NASDAQ: WB) reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings, even as the top line narrowly missed the Street estimate.
Weibo’s revenues grew 14% to $399.2 million, below the Wall Street consensus of $401.51 million. Adjusted net income was 56 cents per share, above 51 cents per share projected by analysts. Weibo’s monthly active users (MAUs) stood at 465 million as of March 2019, representing a net addition of 54 million users since the last year.
Shares of Sina dropped about 9% in the pre-market trading Thursday, after closing the previous session lower.
