Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Patrick Lin with Primarius Capital. Please go ahead.
Patrick Lin - Primarius Capital
Congratulations on the improved performance. Can you give us a little bit more color on the rapid growth in the advertising area? Specifically, what amounted for this kind of growth and what does the growth rate look like going forward in terms of your visibility? And then two, what doe the profitability or gross margin look like on this business, please?
Tiem Foo Him
We guided that for Q1, our advertising revenue will be increased to $3.5 million to $4 million. The main growth in the area is because of the new change in TV project that we have taken on since January 2008.
As for the profitability -- okay, because of the investment that we mentioned in the press release as well as in our script just now, currently we are still at the investment stage. We are planning to spend at least $10 million to invest in our coverage, in our distribution, in our content. So the media business sector alone is expected to be operating at a loss position for the next couple of quarters.
Patrick Lin - Primarius Capital
Okay, and what about the visibility in terms of this business? Is it flattish, is it linear? Is there a seasonality to this? I mean, how does it look for the rest of this year, or is it all program driven in terms of timing?
Edward Liu
There’s also other potential deals in the pipeline that we can’t really discuss right now, but we’d be more than happy to talk to you guys about that offline.
Michael Li
The advertising market here in China is still growing at double-digits in the past few years and it will keep that pace in the next few years. And this year because of the Olympics, it will grow more than 20% for the whole advertising market and Linktone [is positioned] to take advantage of that opportunity.
Patrick Lin - Primarius Capital
Great. Thanks.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our next question is a follow-up from the line of Patrick Lin. Please go ahead.
Patrick Lin - Primarius Capital
Just a quick follow-up; I know you still have a lot of investors here in the U.S., given that’s where the stock trades but I’m curious what other conferences or road shows that you guys might be on over the next three months in terms of meeting with investors, either in Asia or in the U.S.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »



