Sina Corp. (
SINA)
Q3 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
November 16, 2009 8:00 p.m. ET
Executives
Cathy Peng - Investor Relations Manager
Charles Chao - President and Chief Executive Officer
Herman Yu - Chief Financial Officer
Analysts
Richard Ji - Morgan Stanley
Kathy Chen - Goldman Sachs
Catherine Leung - Citigroup
Tian X. Hou - Pali Capital
Thomas - Banc of America/Merrill Lynch
Dick Wei - JP Morgan
Vivian Li - Piper Jaffray
Steve Weinstein - Pacific Crest Securities
Presentation
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the SINA Corp. third quarter 2009 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. However, we will be facilitating a question-and-answer session towards end of the conference.
I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today''s conference, Ms. Cathy Peng, Investor Relations Manager. Please go ahead, ma''am.
Cathy Peng
Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to SINA''s earnings release for the third quarter 2009. Joining me today are our President and CEO, Charles Chao; and our Chief Financial Officer, Herman Yu. This conference call is also being broadcast on the internet and is available through the Investor Relations section of the SINA website.
Before the management presentation, I would like to read you the Safe Harbor statement in connection with today''s conference call. During the course of this conference call, we may make forward-looking statements, statements that are not historical facts, including statements about our beliefs and expectations.
Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements.
SINA assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements in this conference call and elsewhere. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in SINA''s annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2008 and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Additionally, I would like to remind you that our discussion today includes non-GAAP measures, which excludes stock-based compensation as well as other items. We use non-GAAP measures to exclude certain items that are not expected to result in future cash payments, that are non-recurring or that may not be indicative of our core operating results.
For further explanation of our non-GAAP measures and detailed reconciliations between our GAAP and non-GAAP results, please refer to our earnings release. Following management''s prepared remarks, we will open the lines for a brief Q&A session.
With this, I would like to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Charles Chao.
Charles Chao
Thank you, Cathy. And good morning, everyone. Welcome to SINA''s third quarter 2009 financial results conference call. I''m pleased to report a solid quarter with our performance beating the target we originally set in all categories. The brand advertising revenues increased 10% sequentially and amounted to $63.8 million, beating the high end of our guidance at $62 million.
The better than expected performance for our brand advertising business is a result of continuing recovery of China advertising market with more signs of rebound in Chinese economy.
