E-House is China''s largest real estate agency and a consulting service company with a presence in more than 30 cities. Its subsidiary, CRIC, operates the largest real estate database and provides real estate consulting and data service in China.
Under the agreement, SINA would inject its online real estate business into its majority owned subsidiary, China Online Housing, CRIC would issue its ordinary shares to SINA in exchange for SINA''s equity interest in China Online Housing, giving SINA a 39% interest in CRIC.
The transaction was closed on October 16th, with CRIC''s successful listing on NASDAQ. SINA''s equity interest will be approximately 33% in CRIC after its IPO. As a result, starting from the fourth quarter of 2009, SINA will be required deconsolidate the financial results of its real estate business and account for its investment in CRIC using equity method of accounting.
We are very excited about this great opportunity to further expand our business in the real estate vertical. By combining SINA''s real estate business with CRIC''s real estate information and the consulting service, we''re creating a leading real estate information service platform both online and offline with multiple revenue streams.
This transaction marks a significant step in our strategy to expand the business opportunities of our top verticals by teaming up with industry leaders and leveraging our strong brand recognition and online media platforms, as well as, our large user-base. We believe this merger will create significant synergies and will be accretive to SINA''s bottom line.
Lastly, I would like to talk about the private equity placement we announced in September. On September 28, 2009, the company announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement for a private equity placement for its ordinary shares with New-Wave Investment Holding Company Limited, a BVI company established and controlled by myself with investors from other members of management team and certain private equity funds. At the closing, SINA will receive gross proceeds of US $180 million and New-Wave will receive approximately 5.6 million ordinary shares in SINA.
The transaction is expected to close shortly. This investment is a strong vote of confidence in the long-term value of SINA by the management team. It is also our strong commitment to our users, our employees, as well as, our shareholders in building SINA into a more successful new media company with sustainable growth.
The investment by the management will also help to improve our share-hold structure making the interest of the management more in line with that of the shareholders, create more stable management structure and a better environment for long-term strategic decisions. All senior members of the management team have participated in the investment. We are over excited to be part of this second wave of SINA venture.
With that, I''m now turning to Herman for financial highlights for the quarter.
Herman Yu
Thank you, Charles. And thank you all for joining our conference call today. Let me now take you through our key financial results for the third quarter of 2009. Total revenues for the third quarter of 2009 came in at $96.4 million, which exceeds our guidance and represents a sequential increase of 7%.
Our total online advertising revenues, which exclude search revenues for the third quarter of 2009, totaled $63.8 million, increasing 10% from last quarter on top of a 34% sequential increase from the first quarter.
Third quarter 2009 advertising revenues exceeded the high end of our previous guidance by $1.8 million, as we saw the momentum in the recovery of China''s online advertising business continuing especially in the last month of the quarter ahead of the constitutional holidays. On a year-over-year basis, third quarter 2009 advertising revenues declined 16% when compared to a very successful Olympic quarter in 2008.
Now, let me turn to -- now let me take you through the performance of our key advertising sectors. During the third quarter of 2009, advertising revenues for our two largest segments, automobile and real estate grew sequentially. We saw strong sequential growth particularly coming from fast-moving consumer goods and financial sectors, which grew over 40% quarter-over-quarter.
Telecommunications was another bright spot with 20% increase quarter-over-quarter and has displaced IT as a top-five customer segment. Advertising spending from telecom sector has been increasing from the beginning of the year as operators focus on branding their 3G offerings.
On a year-over-year basis, the Olympic Games last year created a tough comparison for the third quarter of 2009. Compared to the 16% year-over-year drop for the total advertising business, sectors that were less impacted by the Olympics, such as automobile, real estate and education performed relatively well, down 4% to up to 10% year-over-year.
Despite heavy spending from fast moving consumer goods advertisers during the Olympics, advertising revenue from FMCG for the third quarter grew 8% year-over-year. We believe FMCG will continue to be a bright spot for us as China emphasize on developing a consumer driven economy and online advertising becomes more widely accepted by FMCG advertisers.
Compared to a year ago, the number of advertisers in China grew 21%, which we believe is a reflection of improving sentiment in the business environment and increasing adoption of online advertising. Average spending per-customer in China was down 31% year-over-year partly due to comparison against an Olympic quarter.
Turning to our non-advertising business. For the third quarter of 2009, our mobile value-added services business or MVAS generated $30.9 million in total revenues, an increase of 14% year-over-year and flat quarter-over-quarter.
Revenues from 2G products were $22.1 million, up 3% from last quarter mostly driven by the slight sequential growth of SMS and IVR, our top-two mobile product lines, which together make up 68% of our total mobile revenues.
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