Sina posts surprise quarterly loss

Sina Corp., which runs China's biggest micro-blogging site, posted a surprise loss of $11.5 million in the second quarter, compared to a profit of $33.2 million in the same period a year earlier. The company took a $27.1 million charge related to the sale of an 18% stake in its Weibo service to Alibaba as it boosted spending on new services for mobile applications to compete with Tencent's new Weixin service. Sina's revenue for the period rose 20% to $157.5 million.