History

What this record covers

Weibo launched in August 2009 inside SINA, began generating revenue in 2012, and listed on Nasdaq in April 2014 at $17.00 per ADS [1]. The primary record indexed for this report runs from that prospectus through the FY2025 Form 20-F filed 23 April 2026 and the first-quarter 2026 earnings call held 28 May 2026.

Four breaks divide the period. The 2014 carve-out established the ownership structure that still governs the company: SINA holds the Class B control block, Alibaba holds the largest economic minority. 2021 combined the fastest revenue growth in the record with the regulatory rectification campaigns, the Hong Kong secondary listing, and SINA's own privatization. 2022 reset revenue to a level it has not left since. From 2023 onward the company redirected cash toward dividends and toward assets bought from its controlling shareholder.

The corpus is uneven across those breaks. Annual reports cover FY2021 through FY2025; the 2014 prospectus and its registration amendments cover the founding period; the six years in between are represented only by figures repeated in later filings. Sixteen earnings-call transcripts are indexed, the oldest for the second quarter of 2021. Two of them — the fourth-quarter 2023 and fourth-quarter 2025 calls — carry no transcript text in this corpus, only the earnings-page metadata around it, and no transcript of the fourth-quarter 2021 call is indexed at all. Those gaps are marked where they bite.

The arc in dated beats

Sources: IPO prospectus, Prospectus Summary, The Offering and Use of Proceeds [2] [3] [4]; FY2021 Form 20-F, related-party and acquisition notes and the Yizhibo live streaming revenue decline [5] [6] [7]; FY2022 Form 20-F, the March 2022 share repurchase authorisation and property [8] [9]; FY2025 Form 20-F, dividend policy, term and revolving facilities, anti-monopoly and ownership [10] [11] [12] [13] [14].

Revenue: one step up, one step down, then a plateau

The prospectus recorded revenue of $65.9 million in 2012 and $188.3 million in 2013, against a 2013 net loss of $38.1 million [15]. Revenue then multiplied roughly nine times in five years, peaked at $2.26 billion in FY2021, fell 18.6% in FY2022, and has since moved less than one percent in either direction for three consecutive years: down 4.2% in FY2023, down 0.3% in FY2024, up 0.1% in FY2025.

Source: reported revenue by business line, FY2016 to FY2025, as presented in the FY2025 Form 20-F consolidated statements of comprehensive income and in the segment disclosures of the earlier Forms 20-F that cover FY2016 to FY2020; FY2023 and FY2022 line detail also appears in the FY2023 results announcement [16].

Inside that plateau, one customer accounts for the direction of travel. Advertising revenue from Alibaba was $139.6 million in 2021, $107.0 million in 2022, $111.6 million in 2023, $116.8 million in 2024 and $173.8 million in 2025 [17] [18]. Advertising revenue excluding Alibaba has fallen in each of the last four years: $1.49 billion in 2022, $1.42 billion in 2023 [19], $1.38 billion in 2024 and $1.33 billion in 2025 [20]. In FY2025 the Alibaba line rose about $57 million and the rest of the advertising book fell about $55 million.

Sources: Alibaba advertiser revenue from the related-party notes [21] [22]; the remainder derived by subtracting that figure from reported advertising revenue. The 2021 Alibaba figure excludes a further $41.7 million billed through an Alibaba advertising agency subsidiary, a channel that ended in 2023 [23].

Users: the series and the sentence attached to it

Weibo reported 129.1 million monthly active users in December 2013 and 61.4 million average daily users [24]. MAUs peaked at 598 million in December 2023 and have declined in each of the two years since, to 590 million and then 567 million; daily users peaked at 260 million in December 2024 and stood at 252 million a year later [25] [26] [27].

Sources: FY2022 Form 20-F for December 2020 to December 2022 [28]; FY2024 Form 20-F for December 2023 and December 2024 [29]; FY2025 Form 20-F for December 2025 [30]. December 2014 to December 2019 are not covered by the indexed filings.

The explanatory clause attached to the decline has not changed. The FY2024 report says MAUs "decreased slightly to 590 million in December 2024, as we have proactively adjusted our user strategy to focus on the acquisition and engagement of high quality users" [31]. The FY2025 report carries the same clause forward for a decline more than twice as large [32]. On the May 2026 call the CFO gave a more specific version: the sequential fall was "mainly reflecting our ongoing rationalization of channel investment and the transition forming our information feed revamp" [33].

Guidance and outcomes

Weibo issued formal quarterly revenue guidance in the older part of this record and then stopped. On the August 2021 call the CFO said: "We anticipate our third quarter of 2021 revenues to increase by 20% to 25% year-over-year on a constant currency basis" [34]. The November 2021 call gave the same format for the quarter after that: "We anticipate our fourth quarter of 2021 revenues to increase by 15% to 20% year-over-year on a constant-currency basis" [35]. That is the last numeric revenue guidance in this record. None appears anywhere in the twelve usable transcripts from the first-quarter 2022 call onward, and no transcript of the intervening fourth-quarter 2021 call is indexed, so the corpus cannot date the change more precisely than "between November 2021 and May 2022." What management does put on the record instead is directional and operating: margin priorities, user strategy, capital-allocation principles, and named headwinds for the coming quarter.

Sources: IPO prospectus, Dividend Policy [36]; Q2 2021 call [37] [38]; Q3 2021 call [39]; Q1 2022 call [40]; FY2022 share repurchase spend [41]; Q2 2023 results announcement [42]; Q2 2024 call [43]; Q4 2024 call [44] [45]; Q2 2025 call [46]; Q3 2025 and Q4 2025 results announcements [47] [48]; Q1 2026 call and results announcement [49] [50]; FY2025 operating cash flow from the FY2025 Form 20-F liquidity discussion [51]; FY2021 and FY2022 operating margins computed from reported income from operations and net revenues; half-year revenue figures derived by summing reported quarters.

The margin claim made in March 2025 is worth stating precisely because it is both accurate and dated. Non-GAAP operating margin was 33% in FY2022 and 34% in FY2023 [52], and 33% in FY2024 [53]. It was 21% in the fourth quarter of 2025 [54] and 30% for the full year [55].

Source: quarterly results announcements, Q2 2023 through Q1 2026 [56] [57] [58].

Capital allocation

The pattern divides at 2023. Before it, the largest single use of cash was long-term investment: $1,593.9 million paid out in 2021 alone, against $447.4 million of disposals and refunds in the same year [59]. After it, the largest recurring use is the dividend, at roughly $200 million a year for three years and $150 million declared for FY2025.

Sources: investing and financing narratives in the FY2023, FY2024 and FY2025 Forms 20-F [60] [61] [62]; buyback from the FY2022 share repurchase spend [63]; dividends from the dividend policy disclosure [64]. Prepayments for SINA Plaza of $132.5m in 2021 and $153.6m in 2022 sit outside these lines; the 2023 acquisition figure is the $218.4m settlement of that purchase plus other consideration.

Sources: IPO use of proceeds [65]; FY2021 Form 20-F acquisition and related-party notes [66] [67] [68]; FY2022 Form 20-F on Yizhibo, SINA Plaza, the JM Tech performance conditions, the share repurchase spend and impairments [69] [70] [71] [72] [73]; FY2024 Form 20-F impairments and Item 16E [74] [75]; FY2025 Form 20-F on INMYSHOW, investments, debt, dividends, HK proceeds and the new authorisation [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81].

Two of those rows describe money moving between Weibo and its controlling shareholder in the same eighteen months: $218.4 million for the building that houses its principal operations, settled in the first quarter of 2023, and RMB2.16 billion for the INMYSHOW stake in March 2023 [82] [83]. Because both parties were under SINA's common control, the INMYSHOW shares came onto Weibo's balance sheet at SINA's carrying value of $230.8 million and the gap between that and the cash paid was recorded in additional paid-in capital as a distribution rather than as an asset [84].

The related-party ledger

Weibo has also run a rolling loan book to SINA throughout the period. In 2025 SINA drew $753.0 million and repaid $773.5 million; the year-end balance of loans and interest receivable was $401.9 million [85]. The disclosed annual interest rate on the balances outstanding at the end of 2022 and 2023 ranged from 1% to 4%, with maturity within one year [86].

Sources: FY2022 Form 20-F for the 2021 balance [87]; FY2023 Form 20-F for 2021 to 2023 [88]; FY2025 Form 20-F for 2023 to 2025 [89]. Interest income on the SINA loans is disclosed in the Item 7 related-party discussions [90] [91] [92].

Two later beats attach to the same block of shares. On 13 March 2025 SINA pledged half its Class B holding — 17.9% of Weibo's shares and 31.3% of its voting power — to secure a $150 million facility, and the filing states that a default could allow the security agent to sell or foreclose, "which potentially could cause a change in control in our company" [93]. In December 2025 Weibo disclosed that SINA had received an adverse judgment in a Cayman Islands section 238 appraisal proceeding arising from its own 2021 privatization; the judgment is stayed pending appeal [94], and a special committee of Weibo's independent directors is monitoring it [95].

Definition and disclosure changes

Sources: segment policy notes in the FY2023 and FY2024 Forms 20-F [96] [97]; results announcements for Q2 2023 and Q4 2023 [98] [99]; the Q4 2025 constant currency footnote [100]; dividend policy disclosure [101].

None of these changes restated a prior period. The segment change is the one that removes information: the two business lines are still disclosed at the revenue level, but the filing states plainly that costs and assets are not allocated to them and that management does not use such information to allocate resources [102].

How the explanation changed

The reason offered for soft advertising revenue has moved through five distinct framings in five years, each anchored to the quarter in which it was given.

August 2021, on the rectification campaigns: management expected "that such rectification may impact on our launch spring campaigns of certain performance driven customers," while adding that "such impact on our overall advertising revenue is manageable" [103].

December 2022, with revenue down 25% year over year: "with macro economy and consumption weighing on the overall advertising market, our clients remained cautious towards their advertising budget spend" [104].

November 2023, the framing shifts to the base period: "in Q3 last year after the pandemic lockdown, advertisers have been intensively launching new products and increased ad placements. Due to these factors, our ad revenues in Q3 picked up modestly year-over-year" [105].

August 2024, back to the economy: "we remain very much cautious over the outlook for the rest of the 2024. So, still we will be experiencing some of the challenges terms of the resumption of the consumption" [106].

August and November 2025, to a specific event comparison: the third quarter would face "a tough year-over-year comparison in third quarter due to the Summer Olympics in the prior year" [107], and the eventual 6% advertising decline was attributed to "less advertising revenue contribution from those sectors which largely benefited from the Paris Olympic Games in the same period last year" [108].

The margin account moved in the opposite direction across the same period. In May 2022 the CFO said Weibo "expect a decline in operating margin compared to last year" and named cost optimisation as the year's highest priority [109]. In March 2025 the same officer described three years of stable non-GAAP margin and around $600 million of operating cash flow as the platform for investing in AI, product innovation and shareholder returns [110]. By May 2026 the framing had returned to spending: costs rose 13%, non-GAAP operating margin fell to 28% from 33%, and the commitment on record is to "manage the pace of these investments with ROI discipline and within a controllable budget framework" [111].

One passage has barely changed. Every annual report from FY2021 to FY2025 illustrates content-regulation risk with the same six-year-old example: the June 2020 CAC fine of RMB500,000 and the one-week suspension of the hot search feature [112] [113]. The FY2025 report is the first to set a current instance beside it: a RMB100,000 fine in September 2025 for displaying a large number of celebrity-related hype topics on the hot search list, with rectification completed [114]. The competitive backdrop against which these explanations were offered is covered in Competition; the people who gave them, and the incentives they hold today, in People.

Where the record is thin

Three gaps limit what this tab can settle. Earnings-call coverage begins with the second quarter of 2021, so the entire 2014 to 2020 stretch of said-versus-did — including the original monetization ramp and the 2018 Yizhibo acquisition — is represented only by figures restated in later filings. The fourth-quarter 2023 and fourth-quarter 2025 call transcripts in this corpus carry no transcript text, which removes both full-year wrap-up calls from the ledger; the fourth-quarter 2025 results announcement covers the numbers but not the question and answer session. And no transcript of the fourth-quarter 2021 call is indexed, so the quarter in which Weibo stopped issuing numeric revenue guidance can only be bracketed between the November 2021 call, which still gave it, and the May 2022 call, which did not.

Three disclosed items have no disclosed outcome. The consideration Weibo received when it transferred the Yizhibo operation to a related party in June 2022 is not stated [115]. Neither the RMB2.16 billion INMYSHOW purchase nor the $127.0 million 2024 investment in a financial-information media company carries any subsequent return disclosure [116] [117]. And the $500 million repurchase authorisation of March 2022 lapsed with 88% unspent, with no explanation offered in any filing or call in this corpus [118] [119].