Sohu seeking 'balanced growth'

CHINESE portal Sohu.com said yesterday it will continue to invest in its own search engine and focus on making it a marketing tool for small and medium size enterprises to complement its brand advertising business.

"We still see advertising the most important and a sustainable revenue stream for Sohu and we have no intention to depend too much on online games," said Charles Zhang, its chairman and chief executive officer.

"What we want is a more balanced growth of our different business segments."

He said although Sohu won't commercialize bloggers' space as its rivals have started to do, the portal plans to sell ads space on its video broadcasting platform which is becoming popular.

Market speculation that Sohu may shift to a game operator grew as its latest self-developed title, Tian Long Ba Bu that is based on a well-known Chinese kong fu novel, was well received by Chinese gamers.

TLBB contributed US$10.9 million in the third quarter, lifting total game sales to become its second largest revenue source, and made Sohu raise its previous fourth quarter sales guidance by 3.5 percent to US$55.5 to US$57.5 million on December 6.

Meanwhile, sales from paid search-related ads fell by 39 percent in the third quarter from a year ago to US$1.7 million.