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 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 “Wo […]
Weibo (Sina Weibo) - Stats, Trends & Insights in China
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:
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 […]
China Social Media Landscape 2018
Kantar Media CIC releases Social Media Landscape 2018. ByteDance (social media platform), AI users and the “Brand Experience Circle” are covered for the first time. The whitepaper analyzes three key elements: media platforms, users, and brands. The definition of “social media” has been extended with the emergence of a dual-layer of core and derivative social […]
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.
Short video becoming a major traffic driver for e-commerce in China
The age distribution of e-commerce users and short video users in China is quite similar. Users age 25 to 35 take the largest share. Such similarity makes it possible for short video marketing to promote e-commerce sales. Short video users have something in common: young, pursuit high-quality lifestyle, want to play and look pretty, love […]
Weibo monthly active users reached 411M, 93% from mobile in Q1 2018
With ad budget in China shifting toward mobile, social and video, Weibo saw its revenues benefiting from this secular trend. Its business with advertising and marketing revenue grew 79% year over year in Q1 2018 to $302.9 million, accounting for 86.6% of its total net revenues ($349.9 million, an increase of 76% YoY) according to […]
Tmall vs JD.com on social media buzz
Chinese New Year is the most important festival in China. Shopping is an integral part of Chinese people’s celebration, and naturally, e-retailers were engaged in fierce battles to compete for attention, and hence preferences, of consumers in the days leading up to Chinese New Year (February 15 in 2018). JD.com (partly owned by Tencent) and […]
Weibo’s monthly active users reached 392 million in 2017
Weibo net revenues totaled $377.4 million in Q4 2017, an increase of 77% year-over-year, exceeding the company’s guidance between $355 million and $365 million.
China social media advertising and marketing market Q2 2017
China social media advertising and marketing market reached 7.62 billion yuan (US$1.15 billion) in Q2 2017 with an increase of 13.2% QoQ or 40.6% YoY.
REPORT Chinese Consumers Paying for Digital Knowledge 2017
This report takes a detailed look at the trend that more and more Chinese consumers pay for quality content online; and, it also shares some insights on the most popular platforms of paid digital content. Content generation start-ups in the United States generally focus on monetizing their viewers or followers through advertising, a la Youtube. […]
Adidas tests the waters with first Weibo Stories ad
Adidas recently released its first foray into Weibo Story advertising, a series of four short videos promoting a new product line. Climbing the learning curve Watching the video, it becomes clear that their first effort has some shortcomings: not once, in all four videos, does the Adidas logo appear, while the Adidas heartbeat associated with […]