New media mogul SINA
The company posted yet another blowout quarter last night. Revenue rocketed 64% higher to $105.4 million. Earnings on a reported basis inched 28% higher to $0.36 a share. Back out stock-based compensation and amortization-related accounting hits, and earnings spiked 40% to $0.44 a share.
It is on that adjusted basis that analysts were looking for SINA to earn just $0.41 a share on $102.7 million in revenue. SINA wins? Big deal! China's Web darling has clocked in ahead of Wall Street's profit targets in each of the past 11 quarters.
SINA fared well on both of fronts, with ad revenue leading a 66% year-over-year gain and mobile value-added services coming through with a 63% improvement.
If sluggish stateside performance of online companies that aren't named Google
Online Revenue Growth |
Q3 |
---|---|
SINA |
66% |
Focus Media |
|
Baidu.com |
|
NetEase.com |
32% |
Sohu.com |
Imagine how great it would be if there were five stateside dot-com bellwethers speeding around the track like that?
SINA's guidance calls for a sequential top-line dip in the current quarter. It sees fourth-quarter revenue coming in between $98 million to $101 million. Wall Street is cool with that -- it was already perched at the low end of that range. Then again, if SINA continues its conservative low-balling ways, don't be surprised if we're back here in three months discussing how SINA has beat the pros' expectations in a dozen consecutive quarters.