Chinese portal Sohu.com yesterday raised its sales and earnings forecast for the fourth quarter on strong sales growth of its new online game.

 

The Beijing-based portal said it expects revenue in the quarter to rise US$2 million from the previous guidance, which was in the range of US$55.5 million to US$57.5 million.

 

It also estimated that fully diluted earnings per share excluding share-based compensation expense for the fourth quarter will be between 36 US cents and 38 US cents, an increase of three US cents.

 

The increase was driven by its online game, Tian Long Ba Bu (TLBB), whose simultaneous online players have grown to 500,000 from the previous quarter's figure of 400,000.

 

"It's 100 percent due to our online game. We are maintaining the previous guidance of advertising revenue," said Charles Zhang, chairman and chief executive officer of Sohu, in a briefing in Beijing yesterday.

 

The ads revenue estimate is between US$31 million and US$32 million.

 

Zhang said Sohu will not shift from a portal to a mainly online game operator, as has NetEase.com, China's No.2 game operator that now depends mostly on game sales.

 

Sohu posted a 47-percent jump in third-quarter earnings in October on record advertising revenue and sales of TLBB, which went online in the second quarter.

 

(Shanghai Daily December 6, 2007)