Twitter is now worth less than its Chinese clone

GIF by Tech in Asia.

China’s Weibo, started in 2009 as a Twitter clone, is suddenly worth more than Twitter itself. Weibo’s market cap now stands at US$11.35 billion, while Twitter is at US$11.34 billion.

It’s a remarkably quick rise for the Chinese social network, which IPO’d in early 2014 at a valuation of US$3.4 billion. On that same day, Twitter was pegged at US$26.8 billion.

Twitter is in freefall as it fails to add new users. The service lost 5 million monthly active users in the past 12 months, with the current tally at 313 million. Weibo, in contrast, is still growing – now at 282 million. Weibo pulled in 70 million new active users in the past year.

Jack Dorsey, the beard years: the Twitter boss and co-founder has his hands full running his other startup, Square, at the same time. Photo credit: cellanr.

Rumors of Twitter seeking – and failing – to find a buyer in the past few weeks have pummeled its stock even harder.

At its peak in early 2014, Twitter was briefly worth just over US$40 billion.

See: 7 years of Weibo

Weibo, in which ecommerce powerhouse Alibaba has a 30 percent stake, is not without its troubles. WeChat, the hugely popular messaging app with just over 800 million users, has beaten Weibo in areas like online stores, cashless payments, and brand accounts. But Weibo still retains its viral power – and its ability to pull in money from ads. Indeed, Weibo’s ad revenue is up 45 percent from the year prior.

Weibo has been quick to tap into China’s hottest new web trend – live streaming. That’s also a new source of revenue as it allows viewers to buy virtual gifts for streamers.

(Updated October 18: The gap widened a bit at the end of Monday trading. Weibo is at US$11.32 billion while Twitter slipped to US$11.23 billion.)