[科技前沿]新浪业绩不佳 遭投资者冷遇

Sina Leaves Investors Cold

The good news for Chinese Internet portal Sina is that it is well-positioned to ride a recovery in the Chinese online-advertising market.

Unfortunately, judging from the company's second-quarter results, that recovery is still some way off. Advertising revenue dropped 11% from a year earlier, and net profit fell 41% in the June quarter.

This is admittedly a tough comparison because the Beijing Olympics last year spurred heavy ad spending.

But Sina's outlook wasn't particularly inspiring either. The company's financial chief described advertiser sentiment as 'still fragile,' and 'fluctuating on a month-by-month basis.'

It is going to take a significant clearing of this haziness for investors to back this stock. Shares are down nearly 30% over the past year, a dismal performance compared with other Chinese Internet plays: Search engine Baidu is up 5% in the same period, while diversified Internet company Tencent has jumped 71%.

At rival Internet portal , results have been cushioned from the downturn by substantial revenue from online gaming, a defensive sector that provides cheap and addictive entertainment to Chinese youth. There, analysts expect revenue to rise 21% this year.

At Sina, analysts expect no increase in sales, based on estimates tallied before the latest report.

Further clouding the outlook is Sina's planned $1.4 billion acquisition of a network that plays video ads in stores and office-building elevators. The deal, with Focus Media, has languished for nearly nine months, awaiting antitrust approval from the Commerce Ministry. It now may be scrapped or altered.

In short, it is difficult to know what the immediate future holds for Sina, in both its core online business or its foray into offline advertising.

Investors wanting to jump into China's Internet universe have plenty of other options.

中文门户网站新浪网(Sina)的好消息是，它处于有利地位，可以借到中国互联网广告市场复苏的东风。

不幸的是，从该公司第二季度业绩看，这番复苏尚需时日。广告收入较上年同期下降11%，净利润下滑41%。

不可否认，与上年同期的比较本身就不合理，因为去年的北京奥运会刺激了大量广告开支。

但新浪的前景也不是那么令人鼓舞。该公司首席财务长说，广告商的情绪还很脆弱，每个月都会出现起伏。

要让投资者支持新浪的股票，就需要厘清这种不确定的状态。过去一年新浪股价下跌近30%，与其他中国互联网企业相比可以说黯然失色：搜索引擎百度(Baidu)上涨5%，拥有多元化业务的网络公司腾讯(Tencent)大涨71%。

同为门户网站的竞争对手搜狐()因来自在线游戏的可观收入而得以缓冲低迷的形势，在线游戏是一个比较保险的领域，为中国年轻人提供成本低廉的娱乐，令他们沉溺其中。分析师预计搜狐今年收入将增长21%。

而对于新浪，分析师们根据最新报告发布前的估计，预期其销售收入不会出现增长。

新浪以14亿美元收购一家在商店和写字楼电梯内播放视频广告的公司的计划令新浪的前景进一步笼罩阴云。与分众传媒的这桩交易已经拖了近9个月，等待商务部反垄断部门的批准。现在这桩交易可能作废或更改。

简言之，在核心的网络业务和线下广告两方面，新浪近期的前景如何都难以确定。

想从中国广阔的互联网行业中分一杯羹的投资者还有许多其他选择。

迪卡诺向投资者给出了一个方便的公式：苹果明年每多售出100万部手机，其每股收益将增加18到20美分。

据汤姆森金融公司（Thomson Financial）称，华尔街目前预期苹果2009财年每股收益为5.84美元，而2010年每股收益为6.79美元。