Chinese Clone Weibo Is Worth More Than Twitter – Again

Bad news just keeps rolling in for Twitter. As the company was announcing their slowest revenue growth since going public, new numbers came out that showed the Chinese clone of the company, Weibo, was doing better than ever. So well, in fact, that Weibo is now worth more than Twitter.

In the latest estimated, Weibo is worth about $11.13 billion while Twitter comes in at about $10.5 billion. Of course, being worth only $10 billion isn’t the worst thing in the world to be known for, but it does show just how far the company has fallen. This is the first time that Weibo’s market capital has risen past the value of Twitter.

While the Chinese version of Twitter isn’t too well known in the west, it is actually listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange – and doing reasonably well. It has an estimated 290 million active users, compared to Twitter’s 319 million. So while Twitter has more active users, Weibo has found a better way to monetize their users.

And since Twitter is banned in China, there’s no real competition for Weibo, meaning the company is projected to go even higher. There’s also a lot more room to grow in the area of social media advertising, something many Chinese companies have been reluctant to embrace.

On Twitter’s end, the company is certainly doing okay. But they still struggle majorly with online harassment, and their last two attempts to find a buyer didn’t go through.

Twitter is still a huge player in the global landscape, but it’s clear they’re not alone on top of the heap any more – and they may actually be headed down. Perhaps that’s why the company dipped into several different content avenues over recent months, notably their entry into the live sports streaming market.

As Twitter searches for their new niche, it’ll be an interesting battle to follow.