Why you should pay attention to this rising Chinese Internet company
The company reported fourth quarter revenue of $477 million, a 24% increase from the previous year. Including the company's online gaming and search engine subsidiaries- Changyou and Sogou, respectively - Sohu's total revenue was $1.7 billion in 2014.
Analysts are talking more positively about the company since Sohu's transition to the mobile ecosystem has helped the company attract around 35 million people to its mobile search engine and 10 million to its mobile news app, two of the best mobile products in the market, according to analysts from Macquarie. Macquarie raised Sohu's 2015 earnings projection by 45% partly based on Sohu's shift towards original content and mobile advertising.
The company's main focus now is to appeal to the 550 million people in China that use mobile internet. CEO Charles Zhang recently said that the company is focusing on mobile advertising because "mobile phones are with people for...more than 10 hours a day, while PC [is] only with people for two hours."
In addition, Sohu believes that in-house video content will provide a massive boost following China's recent crackdowns on internet piracy. Zhang says that right now, Sohu has 80% domestic content and 20% foreign, though the latter number probably won't increase much because of the the upcoming cap in foreign content.
At this point, Sohu.com is the 27th most visited site in the world and is the 8th most popular site in China. However, the company must deal with Baidu, currently the most visited site in China
In 2008, Sohu was awarded full rights to broadcast the Beijing Olympics on their site after partnering with CCTV.com, China's official broadcast network for the games.