On March 14th, Weibo (09898. HK, stock price of HKD 77.1, market value of HKD 18.1 billion) released its financial reports for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023.
In the fourth quarter, Weibo's total revenue was 463.7 million US dollars, approximately 3.318 billion yuan. Excluding exchange rate factors, the total revenue increased by 5% year-on-year. Among them, advertising revenue reached 403.7 million US dollars, approximately 2.886 billion RMB. Excluding exchange rate factors, advertising revenue increased by 5% year-on-year. The adjusted operating profit for the fourth quarter was 145.9 million US dollars, approximately 1.034 billion RMB, with an adjusted operating profit margin of 31%.
In 2023, Weibo achieved a total revenue of 1.76 billion US dollars, approximately RMB 12.515 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 4%; The adjusted operating profit for the whole year of 2023 is 592.1 million US dollars, equivalent to approximately 4.229 billion yuan. Among them, advertising and marketing revenue was 1.53 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 4%, or a year-on-year increase of 1% based on fixed exchange rates; Value added service revenue was $225.8 million, a year-on-year decrease of 6% or a year-on-year decrease based on fixed exchange rates.
"In 2023, our product competitiveness and operational efficiency have been further improved," said Wang Gaofei, CEO of Weibo, in his financial report. "Our user base has further expanded, mainly due to our continuous strengthening of the content ecosystem construction and enhancing the core competitiveness of our products. In terms of monetization, our advertising business gradually recovered within the year and showed stable performance this quarter. Due to our continued focus on operational efficiency and financial discipline, we maintained good profitability and steady growth in operating cash flow in 2023. At the same time, committed to improving shareholder returns, we are pleased to announce that the company's board of directors has approved the distribution of approximately $200 million in special cash dividends to shareholders."
As of the end of the fourth quarter, the monthly active users on Weibo reached 598 million, a net increase of about 11 million year-on-year, and the daily active users reached 257 million, a net increase of about 5 million year-on-year.
According to Weibo, in the fourth quarter, the entertainment industry has continuously increased the activity and interaction of top celebrities, strengthened work discussions, and consolidated the competitiveness of the star fan ecosystem and work ecosystem. In 2023, the traffic and interaction scale of the entertainment industry have increased compared to 2022, especially the top celebrities posting and interacting on Weibo, and the interaction scale between star fans has increased by more than 30% compared to 2022. With the improvement of the work environment in 2023, the promotion traffic and discussion volume of the work on Weibo have significantly increased compared to 2022, with an annual increase of over 50% in discussion volume. The drama traffic and discussion have reached a historic high.
According to the "Ecological White Paper on Weibo Vertical Fields", the proportion of content in Weibo vertical fields reached 41% in 2023, and the number of vertical creators increased by 14% year-on-year. In Q4 2023, the daily average vertical hot search traffic increased by 82% year-on-year, the size of the Golden Orange V account increased by 20% year-on-year, the revenue of Golden Orange V increased by 66% year-on-year, and the revenue of Orange V increased by 173% year-on-year. The monetization efficiency of high-quality creators has further improved.