SINA on monetizing Internet search in China - implications for Baidu (2Q05 conf call quotes)

Sina.com (ticker SINA) reported Q2 2005 earnings results
yesterday. Here are key quotes attributed to Sina CEO Wang Yan, CFO and
Co-COO Charles Chao and Co-COO Hurst Lin from management's earnings
results conference call:

On Monetizing Search

....regarding the
revenue on search going forward, in the short-term we don’t see -- we
just see a modest rise quarter-on-quarter in connection with the rise
in traffic. But we don’t see an explosive growth yet before again it
has got to do with the fact that ecommerce based transactions in China
haven’t really taken off yet and until that day comes, or until the
payment solution in China is solved, I think it is going to be a little
bit more difficult for a lot of these small medium sized businesses to
buy keywords and be able to account the efficiency of their keyword
purchases. So because of that we think that the monetization is still
going to take a little bit of time. At least not growing at the rate
that people are used to seeing in other countries as yet in China.

On New Government Regulations Relating to Online Games

....GAPP....has
notified Sina....regarding the implementation of a game fatigue
system....we do not see this game fatigue system to have any material
impact on Sina’s overall business.

On the Future of SMS

....SMS
still has a very large market in China…good opportunity for SPs....if
they can find a good product and find a good channel to promote these
products.

(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)

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