In our latest look at Sina’s most exciting growth prospect, Weibo microblogging, we remain enthusiastic about the product and believe Sina will slowly (but surely) find more ways to monetize it in a hybrid model based on Twitter and Facebook.
We see minimal risk from the government “going nuclear” and completely shutting down Weibo; rather we believe Beijing will keep a close on it and enlist Sina as a “trusted partner” that can placate sensitivity concerns while also giving Chinese a way to blow off steam or simply entertain themselves. While Tencent remains a competitive threat, we think it’s a low level one for the foreseeable future.