Alliances with smartphone makers aid Weibo’s ad sales

Weibo reported a narrower second-quarter loss as alliances with smartphone manufacturers boosted users, helping the Chinese microblogging service controlled by Sina win more advertising sales.

The net loss was $15.4 million in the three months ended June 30 from a loss of $35.1 million a year earlier, the Beijing-based company said in a statement yesterday. Sales more than doubled to $77.3 million, higher than Weibo’s forecast in May of sales of $74 million to $76 million.

Weibo said the number of daily active users increased 32 percent in the period from a year earlier. CEO Wang Gaofei is investing in marketing, product development and using partnerships to win users amid competition from Tencent Holdings’s WeChat messaging application. Bloomberg