We are particularly encouraged by the signs of accelerated recovery in the advertising market beginning in the month of September. Our mobile business has also had a modest out-performance in the third quarter as we maintain our stronghold in the sector.
Now, let me talk more details about our advertising business. As we discussed before, the advertising market sentiment improved significantly in the second quarter as the government''s stimulus plan began to take effect and we saw strong rebound in stock market and housing market and strong momentum in automobile sales. This trend continued in the third quarter as we experienced strong sequential growth in most of our major advertising categories.
However, on a year-over-year basis, we still saw a decline in advertising revenues. The third quarter of last year was a particularly strong quarter and we had 66% year-over-year growth due to the Olympic factor and it was a quarter that was exceptional for comparison purpose.
The major sectors experienced year-to-year growth in the third quarter, are real estate and fast-moving consumer products or FMCG, both sectors grow -- grew approximately 10% from the same period of last year. The growth in FMCG is particularly encouraging given the outstanding performance we had in the third quarter of last year for the sector.
As I mentioned in the beginning, we''re encouraged by signs of accelerated recovery in Chinese advertising market and we''re seeing this momentum continues in the fourth quarter.
For the third quarter, China''s GDP grew by 8.9% year-over-year, a strong sign that Chinese economy recovery is well underway. The consumer confidence has rebounded significantly and advertisers in general have returned to their normal spending patterns.
We currently expect that our advertising business will experience higher than normal sequential growth in the fourth quarter, compared to the previous years prior to the Olympic year.
More importantly, for the first time this year, we''re going to see meaningful growth in our advertising business on a year-over-year basis in the fourth quarter. If Chinese economy continues its current pace for recovery, we expect Chinese online advertising market would resume its strong growth next year and SINA, as the leader in this industry will benefit significantly.
Our confidence reflects on our strong market position in the online advertising market in China and our commitment in further investing in our content, products and brand to enhance the competitiveness and the value of our online media property.
Over the past two years, we have been focused on investing in our video platform and our interactive community products. We''re currently operating one of the largest online video platforms in China with both mainstream video programs, as well as, user-generated content broadcasting.
We have successfully integrated our video platforms in our content channels, which give us strong competitive edge against vertical video sites. During the third quarter, we launched a high-definition online video platform, which allows viewers to watch DVD quality movies and TV dramas online.
We also launched an interactive video program that allows audience to have live video interactions in live programs both platforms are very well received by our users.
In addition, we have also developed a video program management system, which allows us to manage video program effectively, both on SINA''s site, as well as, on other sites, paving the way for future monetization programs across the website network.
Also in the month of September, we started the beta testing of SINA miniblog, a Tweeter type of product in China. Although this product is still in the soft launch stage, it has already created a big buzz with a lot of press coverage, making it one of the largest in its kind in China in terms of user-base.
We believe SINA miniblog is the next generation of media community products, as well as, a powerful communication platform, which will become increasingly popular among internet users and the mobile phone users.
With our huge success in SINA blog and our experience in operating in the China media environment, we have strong hope to develop this platform into another killer application which will further expand our user-base and enhance the stickiness of our website.
Next, I''m going to talk about our M&A activities. At the end of September, we announced that our merger with Focus Media''s out-of-home advertising business was cancelled with expiration of the closing day. The process of antitrust approval by the Chinese commerce department had taken much longer than we expected.
While we still believe that the proposed merger will result in a lot of synergies between the two companies and help create a dominant new media company in China, the prolonged process had created a negative impact on the business of both companies.
As such, we mutually decided not to further extend our closing deadline instead we’ll seek strategic cooperation between the two companies at the operation levels in the future.
Secondly, I''m going to talk about our real estate business spin-off. On July 23, 2009, we announced that we had entered into a definitive agreement to merge with online -- to merge our online real estate business with E-House wholly owned subsidiary, CRIC Holdings Limited.
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