China's Twitter-Like Platform Weibo Keeps User Engagement High, Credits AI-Recommendation Engine

Weibo Corp (NASDAQ: WB) reported fiscal first-quarter results on Wednesday. The company reported quarterly revenue of $396.9 million, up 0.34% year-on-year, beating the analyst consensus estimate of $394.2 million. 

The Chinese microblogging social network company’s revenue grew 1% Y/Y on a constant basis. Adjusted EPS of 45 cents beat the analyst consensus estimate of 38 cents.

Weibo’s advertising and marketing revenues were $339.1 million, flat Y/Y. Advertising and marketing revenues, excluding advertising revenues from Alibaba Group Holding BABA, were $296.5 million, a decrease of 6% Y/Y.

Also Read: Weibo Ad Revenue And MAUs Drop In Q4, Stock Slides

Value-added service (VAS) revenues increased 2% Y/Y to $57.7 million, primarily driven by the growth of membership services revenues.

Monthly active users (MAUs) were 591 million in March 2025 (vs. 588 million Y/Y), while Average daily active users (DAUs) were 261 million (vs. 255 million Y/Y). 

The adjusted operating margin grew by 100 bps to 33% as profits increased 2.9% Y/Y. 

As of March 31, 2025, Weibo held $2.08 billion in cash and equivalents, generating $113.2 million in operating cash flow during the quarter.

CEO Gaofei Wang described its focus on integrating Weibo’s social features and upgrading the recommendation system. On the AI application front, it made Weibo Intelligent Search, its AI-powered search function, available to all users. During the first quarter, he added that both the user base and daily search queries of Weibo Intelligent Search achieved decent sequential growth.

“On the monetization front, we delivered a solid performance of ad business, leveraging our strengths in content marketing and enhanced ad placement efficiency of our real-time-bidding information feed ad products. Benefiting from solid execution of disciplined spending strategy, our operating efficiency further improved, which laid the foundation for us to invest for our product competitiveness, AI technology, as well as shareholder return,” Wang said.

Price Action: WB stock is trading higher by 3.03% to $8.675 at last check Wednesday.

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