SHANGHAI - China's Sina Corp disappointed Wall Street with a soft outlook for its fourth quarter, citing a slowdown in advertising spending for certain categories, sending its US shares lower in after-hours trade.
China's largest Internet portal competes with Tencent Holdings and Sohu in China's roughly $600 million portal advertising market.
For the past two quarters, the World Cup and Shanghai World Expo have boosted advertising spending across portals such as Sohu.
"People might be disappointed that the fourth quarter growth wasn't as strong as expected," said Paul Wuh, a Hong Kong based analyst with Samsung Securities.
"Autos represent a large percentage of their overall (advertising) revenues for the company, so if that area is flat, it is very hard to see significant upside growth," Wuh said. China's largest Internet portal attributed the slowdown to a spike in advertising spending in the autos category in the first half of the year and the lack of marquee events in the fourth quarter.
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