News and Research on Sina Corp. (SINA)
Business Description
SINA Corporation operates as an online media company that provides value-added information service in the People’s Republic of China and the global Chinese communities. The company provides various services including region-focused online portals, MVAS, search and directory, interest-based and community-building channels, free and premium email, blog services, audio and video streaming, online games, classified listings, e-commerce and enterprise e-solutions.
The company provides services through five major business lines including SINA.com (online news and content), SINA Mobile (mobile value-added services or MVAS), SINA Community (Web 2.0-based services and games), SINA.net (search and enterprise services) and SINA E-Commerce (online shopping).
SINA.com
SINA is an online brand advertising property in China. SINA employs a multi-pronged sales strategy that targets both short-term opportunities such as banner advertising campaigns, as well as longer-term, higher-value contracts that include integrated marketing packages. Its advertising product offerings consist of banner, button, text-link advertisements that appear on pages within the SINA network, promotional sponsorships that are typically event-specific and advertising campaign design and management services.
The company’s primary target client base comprises Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies that employ a global approach to their branding, marketing and communications programs. Regional companies consist of medium to major companies that are focused on specific geographic and demographic markets, such as Chinese Americans or Taiwanese, and smaller companies whose markets are within a local territory, such as Beijing or Hong Kong.
The company’s advertising clients include Lenovo, Nike, China Mobile Communication Corporation (China Mobile), China Unicom Co., Ltd. (China Unicom), Hewlett Packard, eBay Inc. (eBay), Honda Motors, Shanghai Volkswagen, Samsung and TCL.
SINA’s portal network consists of four destination web sites dedicated to its users across the globe: Mainland China (www.sina.com.cn), Taiwan (www.sina.com.tw), Hong Kong (www.sina.com.hk), and overseas Chinese in North America (www.sina.com). Each destination site consists of Chinese-language news and content organized into interest based channels. The sites offer community and communication services and web navigation capability through SINA search and directory services. SINA.com offers various free interest-based channels that provide region-focused format and content.
News: SINA News aggregates feeds from news providers, bringing together content from media companies such as China National Radio, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Associated Press, Nanfang Daily, Beijing Zhongxin Net, and Xinhua News Agency. Through SINA News, users have access to breaking news coverage from multiple sources and points of view.
SINA Sports: SINA Sports offers multimedia news and information on a range of sporting events from home and abroad. SINA Sports features domestic and international soccer matches, NBA games, general sports as well as exciting coverage of famous sports stars and teams in the world.
SINA Entertainment: SINA Entertainment contains coverage of local and international entertainment news and events, including dining, movies, television programs, plays, operas, as well as popular and classical music.
SINA Auto: SINA Auto offers the automobile-related news and service information to provide car buyers and automobile enthusiasts with the current information on automotive pricing, reviews and featured guides.
SINA Finance: SINA Finance provides business news coverage and personal finance columns. SINA Finance also offers stock quotes from the U.S., Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Taiwan stock exchanges, as well as breaking news from individual listed companies and market trends analysis.
SINA Real Estate: SINA Real Estate provides the latest news, pricing and availability of new, used and rental housing. It also features interactive electronic maps, discussion forums and how-to guides for buyers, sellers and owners of properties on topics ranging from home buying, selling, furnishing and repairing.
SINA Technology: SINA Technology provides updates on recent activities of high-tech corporations and technology trends, while offering product reviews and software downloads.
SINA Game: SINA Game provides news and updates on online and PC games, as well as game hardware and accessories in China. SINA Game also provides downloads and entry points for users to online games in China.
SINA Eladies: SINA Eladies serves as an interactive platform for fashion-conscious users to share comments and ideas on a range of topics, such as health, cosmetics and beauty. SINA Eladies also provides real-time coverage of major world fashion events, bringing users the latest on styles and trends.
SINA Video: SINA Video is an interactive online video platform that provides the interactive video products. SINA Video is divided into branded sections, including Broadband Sports Live Broadcast, VIP Chat, SINA TV, DV Craze, Entertainment Shows, Movie Premieres and Best Original Creations.
SINA WAP: As a Chinese wireless application protocol portal, SINA WAP offers a world of free information and entertainment. Users can access the very latest information around the world via their mobile phones.
SINA Mobile
SINA’s MVAS allows users to receive news and information, download ring tones and pictures, and participate in dating and friendship communities. Users can order these services through the SINA web site or through their mobile phones on a monthly subscription or pay per-message basis. SINA offers MVAS through a range of products from content downloading, subscription to dating services and mobile games, on multiple platforms such as short messaging service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), wireless application protocol (WAP), interactive voice response system (IVR), color ring back tone (CRBT) and KJAVA/BREW.
SINA Mobile provides MVAS mainly through operator platforms, including the Monternet platform of China Mobile and the UNI-Info platform of China Unicom. SINA’s MVAS can be categorized into three main categories, including news and information, community, and multimedia downloads.
SINA SMS: SINA developed a suite of short messaging services that includes user-customized information subscription, personal greetings, customized mobile phone screen decoration, personalized ring tones, mobile dating service and mobile games.
SINA MMS: Using general packet radio service (GPRS) technology, MMS enables users to download color pictures and ring tones, as well as to transmit more data per message. SINA MMS’ multimedia functionalities enable content and information exchanges in the form of text, graphics, audio and data.
SINA IVR: Users can obtain information via their mobile phones by dialing a list of fixed numbers and following a set of pre-recorded messages. Sample services include weather forecasting and data searching. IVR offers applications in the areas of interactive games and professional products.
SINA WAP: The company’s WAP services use GPRS technology to provide users with color pictures and graphics, ring tones, news, chatting and dating, games and entertainment.
SINA CRBT: The company’s CRBT service gives mobile phone users the option to customize their ring back tone based on songs and special sound effects.
SINA KJAVA/BREW: SINA KJAVA/BREW provides graphic and animated MVAS products on China Mobile’s K-Java mobile platform. SINA KJAVA/BREW covers a range of services including mobile phone games, animation and videos, portable tools and news updates.
SINA Community
SINA Community provides a user-generated platform for information and entertainment and promoting the community experience for SINA netizens.
SINA Blog: SINA Blog has a platform for Chinese bloggers to read and publish original writings. Building on SINA’s brand prestige and large user traffic, SINA Blog generates approximately 100 millions of page views daily and represents a destination for celebrities to maintain a direct dialog with their fans.
SINA Podcast: SINA Podcast allows users to upload, publish and manage their audio-visual information in addition to the basic text and image transfer provided by SINA Blog. SINA Podcast serves as a personal multimedia platform for users to create their individual online portals.
SINA Mail: SINA Mail services include Free Email, VIP Mail and Corporate Email for enterprise users. SINA Mail supports both POP3 and SMTP access and provides users with year-round anti-spam and anti-virus protection.
SINA Circle: SINA Circle allows users to form communities on the web. SINA Circle builds on existing SINA Community services, such as SINA Blog, to create user-maintained and supported online communities.
SINA BBS: SINA BBS hosts topic-specific discussion forums in Chinese language.
SINA Post-it: As part of SINA’s classified ad service, SINA Post-it allows free posting of advertisements for individual and enterprise users. SINA’s proprietary classified search technology allows users to find data and information.
SINA.net
SINA.net serves as an enterprise solutions platform to assist businesses and government bodies to engage, communicate and transact with their target audiences via the Internet. SINA.net provides businesses and government bodies with e-marketing and e-government solutions including search, corporate email, classified information, e-commerce and city portals.
Search and Listings: SINA’s listing properties include a search engine, a directory and classified information. SINA’s search engine and directory provide an online guide to web navigation and a gateway to the vertical offerings on the SINA network. Users can either browse the directory listings by subject matter or use SINA Search, a keyword search function that scans the contents of the entire directory. For browser-driven inquiries, SINA’s directory results include Sponsored Sites, a SINA-created fee-based program that allows commercial sites to receive enhanced placement in the directory. For keyword-search-driven inquiries, its search results also include SINA Sponsor matches, site listings with enhanced placement in search results that are bought by businesses or organizations.
SINA iAsk: SINA iAsk offers knowledge-based and community-based search in addition to the standard web-based search. As an intelligent interactive search engine with natural language processing technology, SINA iAsk categorizes search subjects into areas of web pages, news, pictures, music, knowledge, and video. SINA iAsk offers an interactive Q&A platform and personalized features such as search by local content (maps, entertainment and travel).
SINA E-Commerce
The company offers SINAMall (http://mall.sina.com.cn), an online shopping web site, on its Chinese Mainland and North America Web sites. Based on SINA’s proprietary technology platform, SINAMall enables both international and local companies to transact business.
Content Partnerships
The company’s content providers include Xinhua News Agency, China National Radio, AFP, Associated Press, Nanfang Daily Group and Beijing Zhongxin Net.
Strategic Alliance
The company has entered into a strategic alliance with China Telecom Corp., Ltd. to launch a co-branded video sharing platform under the brand name of 'SINA-Vnet Podcast'. Under the alliance, the co-branded site would be hosted on SINA.com but Internet users would also be able to access the SINA-Vnet Podcast platform through China Telecom's portal Vnet.cn.
Competition
Portals: The company’s competitors include other online content/services companies, such as Baidu.com, Inc. (Baidu), Tencent Holdings Limited (QQ), Netease.com, Inc. (Netease), Sohu.com Inc. (Sohu), and TOM Online Inc. (TOM Online).
Vertical Players: The company’s competitors include video, search, instant messaging, blog and WAP portalproviders, such as Tencent Holdings Limited and Microsoft Corporation. In video content areas, SINA competes with domestic companies such as Yogoo, 6rooms, Ku6, and 5Shows. In Blog, SINA’s competitors include Baidu, Tencent Holdings Limited and Sohu and private companies, such as Hexun, BlogCN, Bokee and ChinaBlog in China. Its competitors in the online search market include Yahoo!/Alibaba, Baidu, and Google, Inc. (Google). On the mobile side, the company competes with service providers such as Kongzhong, Linktone, Hurray and TOM Online. In the WAP portal space, its competitors include QQ, Kongzhong and Shanghai 3G Electronic Engineering Company Ltd. (Shanghai 3G).
International Players: The company also faces competition from international Internet companies such as Yahoo! Inc. (Yahoo!), Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft), eBay and Google.
History
SINA Corporation was founded in 1997.
