China’s mass local brands are gaining shelf share of Alibaba’s Tmall platform while the visibility for western brands is increasingly challenging. Chinese color cosmetic brands now account for 55% of top 10 default search results and 65% of sales-sorted search results, up 14% and 11% YoY respectively, according to a Gartner report. The report shows […]
What is Weibo (Sina Weibo)?
Weibo, short for MicroBlog and renamed after "Sina Weibo", is one of the top social networking platform in China with 462 million monthly active users. Users can publish posts and follow other users, celebrities, businesses, and government agencies on Weibo.
It can be accessed at Weibo.com and Weibo.cn for mobile; its service can also be accessed on mobile apps (iPhone, Android, iPad, and etc.). Weibo app is among the top mobile apps in China by MAUs.
Both Weibo.com and its mobile apps provide three languages: simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, and English. If you need Weibo English version, you can either select the language at the bottom of Weibo.com or go to settings of Weibo app.
China microblogging market used to have four players: Sina Weibo launched in 2009 by Sina, Tencent Weibo, Netease Weibo, and Sohu Weibo. None gained much popularity but Sina Weibo, which was later on rebranded as Weibo and listed on NASDAQ:WB in 2014.
Weibo Users. Weibo has regular users, verified individual users with an orange V icon, organizations and companies with a blue V icon, and paid VIP members with extra features.
Main Features. Besides following other users and publishing Weibo posts under 2,000 Chinese characters (limited to 140 initially), users can also perform live broadcasting, buy and sell products, start polls, play games, upload short videos, and make money via advertisements, paid posting, monetary rewards by other users, and paid subscriptions.
Weibo vs. WeChat. Weibo is often compared with WeChat. But, Weibo started as a microblogging platform like Twitter; and, WeChat started as an instant messenger app and expanded with the social networking feature under WeChat Moments.
By nature, the two are different. A WeChat user is connected with much more family members, friends, colleagues, and business associates than a Weibo user. Hence, it’s not surprising to see much higher engagements and more monthly active users on WeChat. However, Weibo is a more public platform and most published posts are visible to the public while WeChat posts on Moments are only visible to mutually connected users.
Weibo statistics: Weibo MAU since 2013 Q4 2018, Q3 2018, Q2 2018, Q1 2018, Q4 2017, Q2 2017, Q1 2017, Q4 2016, Q3 2016, Q2 2016, Q1 2016, Q4 2015, Q3 2015, Q2 2015, Q1 2015
Recommended Posts on Weibo:
Weibo MAU grew to 550 million in Q1 2020
Weibo monthly active users (“MAUs”) were 550 million in March 2020, a net addition of approximately 85 million users, or 16% increase on year over year basis. Mobile MAUs represented about 94% of MAUs.
What is May 20, 520 day holiday in China? Chinese Internet Valentine’s Day
What is this “520 day” that so many Chinese are crazy about? 520 is a short form of the day of May 20; and, this date is another Valentine’s Day holiday in China. But why is this date Valentine’s Day? It may sound funny but “520” sounds phonetically very close to “I Love You”, or […]
Weibo MAU grew to 516M in Dec 2019; revenues to decrease by 15% in Q1 2020
Weibo’s monthly active users (“MAUs”) grew to 516 million in December 2019, a net addition of approximately 54 million users year-over-year. Mobile MAUs represented 94% of MAUs.
Weibo monthly active users grew slightly to 497 million in Q3 2019
Weibo’s monthly active users were 497 million in September 2019, a net addition of approximately 51 million users year-over-year. Mobile MAUs represented approximately 94% of MAUs.
Top Mini-Programs in Oct 2019; China’s mini-apps war led by online shopping
In addition to Tencent’s WeChat, Baidu, and Ant Financial’s Alipay, many other large Chinese Internet companies have been taking actions in building their mini-program ecosystems. QQ (Tencent) introduced the “One-click Comment” function and managed to explored new sources of traffic. Alipay introduced the “Comment after Payment” function. WeChat (Tencent) introduced the Notification Subscription and Industry […]
How Taobao uses search and content to cultivate social e-commerce
Taobao launched its own Hot Search List function in September. It’s currently only available to 50% of the users, the Hot Search List appears when users click the search bar on the main page. Hot Search items on the list appear to be phrases edited manually rather than product keywords. Though it looks like Weibo’s […]
Fake fans and manipulations on China social media
Hive Media, the largest MCN on Weibo, is accused of falsifying data. Parties involved in the whole incident – the advertisers, Hive and Weibo site – all received negative comments on social media in China.
Weibo’s monthly active users grew to 486 million in Q2 2019
Weibo’s monthly active users (“MAUs”) reached 486 million in June 2019, a net addition of approximately 55 million users year-over-year. Mobile MAUs represented approximately 94% of MAUs. Weibo average daily active users (“DAUs”) were 211 million in June 2019, a net addition of about 21 million users year-over-year according to Weibo’s official finance results.
China social media users’ content preference by education levels 2019
WeChat and QQ have similar reach among users with different educational backgrounds. Weibo reached less than 30% of the 378 million users with a low education background; its penetration among users with a bachelor’s Degree was nearly 50%. Only 15% users with a low education background used Bilibili, comparing to 45.8% users with a bachelor’s […]
Weibo monthly active users grew to 462 million in Dec 2018, 93% on mobile
Weibo reported a net addition of approximately 70 million in monthly active users and reached a total of 462 million as of December 2018. Its average daily active users are 200 million in December 2019, roughly 28 million more than 2017.
Weibo MAU increased to 446M in Q3 2018, 93% mobile
Weibo reported a net addition of approximately 70 million in MAUs year-on-year to reach 446 million in September 2018. Mobile MAUs represented 93% of total MAUs. DAUs had a net addition of approximately 30 million users year-on-year and reached 195 million.
Top social networking mobile apps in China in Q2 2018, led by WeChat, QQ, Weibo
WeChat (86%), QQ (70.1%), and Weibo (35.8%) were the top three mobile social networking apps by penetration rates in China. Both WeChat and QQ saw a negative growth in penetration in June 2018 while Weibo performed well with penetration growth of 2.2%. In June 2018, the average DAU of WeChat reached 612 million, an increase of […]
A lesson for marketers from an online drama with over 2 billion video views
With enough passion, the fans of an online TV drama can “light up” a twin skyscraper in Shanghai. Guardian, an online drama adapted from the namesake popular online novel became the hottest online video this summer. Its total video views exceeded 2 billion. On June 14, the day after it premiered on Youku.com exclusively, its […]
Weibo monthly active users (MAU) grew to 431 million in Q2 2018
Weibo’s monthly active users (“MAUs”) had a net addition of approximately 70 million users year over year and reached 431 million in June 2018 according to its unaudited financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2018. Mobile MAUs represented 93% of MAUs.