And from IBD-- includes what analysts will be looking for in the call later tonight.
Weibo Analysts Eye User Metrics, Alibaba Partnership
By KEVIN SHALVEY, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 05/20/2014 11:01 AM ET
news.investors.com
Newly public Weibo (WB) has already released most of its key financial results for Q1, so when the company officially reports Wednesday analysts will be eyeing user metrics.
"Apart from the preliminary financial figures, I am more interested to find out the trend of daily active user growth," wrote Morningstar analyst Yue Yao in an email to IBD.
Weibo runs a microblogging social network similar to Twitter (TWTR) or Facebook (FB). Weibo had 61.4 million daily users in December 2013, up 36.1% from the year-earlier period.
Analysts are hoping Weibo's biggest investors, including e-commerce giant Alibaba, will spur user growth and monetization in 2014.
Weibo was spun off from Sina (SINA), a portal that retains a 57% stake. Sina is expected to make 2014 a "year of investment in Weibo," pushing for greater monetization through ads, according to analyst Tian X. Hou, who rates Sina stock a buy.
Weibo last year got an advertising boost from Alibaba, the e-commerce giant that's planning a blockbuster U.S. initial public offering. Alibaba in April 2013 took an 18% stake in Weibo for $586 million. The company upped that to 30% when it bought an additional $449 million in shares at the time of Weibo's initial public offering last month.
"We believe the focus on the call should be around the Alibaba partnership, the progress on new advertising formats, and latest user engagement trend on the platform," wrote JG Capital analyst Henry Guo in a Tuesday research note.
The Alibaba-Weibo deal helps drive traffic to Alibaba's e-commerce sites and boosts Weibo's ad sales. In 2013, Weibo ad sales climbed 186%, with one-third of revenue coming from diverting traffic to Alibaba's Taobao.com, according to analyst Yao.
Weibo in its final pre-IPO regulatory filing reported Q1 sales up 160% to $67.5 million, an acceleration from 57% growth in Q1 2013 but down from 333% growth in Q4, according to regulatory filings.
The company reported an adjusted net loss of $4.8 million vs. an $18.4 million loss in the year-earlier period.
Weibo hasn't said whether it will give guidance for coming quarters, says a spokesperson via email. Parent company Sina gives guidance.
Weibo was down more than 2% in early trading in the stock market today, above 19. The company priced its IPO at 17, the low end of its expected range. Shares closed their first day of trading up 19% after earlier in the day touching the stock's high of 24.48..
Follow Kevin Shalvey on Twitter at @IBD_kshalvey.
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