This morning, Sina’s (NASDAQ:SINA) quarterly earnings call turned more than a few heads. The company actually posted a profit, but is forecasting a less pleasant Q1 2012 thanks to the approaching real-name registration deadline as well as some additional investments in the weibo platform. CEO Charles Chao said of the impending deadline:
We believe the requirement to convert existing users into verified users […] will have a negative impact on user activity in the short term.
He did announce some good news, too — Sina Weibo has broken the 300 million user mark — but judging from the comments on Twitter this morning, most people seemed to feel that Mr. Chao sounded downbeat.
For a great summary of the whole thing, read through Digicha’s post with a rundown of @niubi’s tweets throughout the call, but here are a couple really significant ones:
$SINA CEO predicts 10-20% of new users may drop out real name registration process. then 40-45% of those who try will fail verification
— Bill Bishop (@niubi) February 28, 2012
$SINA CEO: initial response rate 2 trying get existing users 2 upgrade 2 real name has been “quite low”. lots of “uncertainty” & “hopefully”
— Bill Bishop (@niubi) February 28, 2012
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