Weibo attracts 340m users in Q1, overtakes Twitter
Weibo, China’s micro-blogging platform, has overtaken Twitter for the first time attracting 340 million monthly active users in March.
Weibo reported 340 million monthly active users in March 2017
Weibo reported a 30% increase in MAU’s year-on-year in its first quarter results. Average daily users were also up 28% to 154 million.
The platform also revealed that 91% of Weibo users access the site via mobile.
The results mark the first time that Weibo, which launched three years after Twitter, has overtaken the site. Twitter, which is blocked in China, has 328 million monthly users.
Weibo also reported a strong first quarter with 67% year-on-year growth in net revenues to reach $199.2 million. The growth was driven by advertising and marketing revenues which grew 71% to $169.3 million.
Weibo recently introduced live streaming and a new feature called Weibo Stories in a bid to capitalise on the booming short form video market.
Weibo CEO Gaofei Wang said, "Our relentless focus to build the best social media experience in China is reflected in Weibo's strong performance in the first quarter of 2017.
“Looking ahead, we continue to see strong momentum, as we further optimise Weibo to share, discover and consume information, especially for the mobile, social and video environment."
The news follows research last month, which found WeChat users spend more time on the app than Facebook users.