(Yicai Global) May 18 -- Zhihu’s net loss widened 61 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier as costs at China’s biggest question-and-answer platform increased. Losses had been narrowing over the previous five quarters.

The net loss was CNY324.7 million (USD49.6 million) in the three months ended March 31, the Beijing-based company said yesterday in its first earnings report since listing in New York in March. Revenue jumped 154 percent to CNY478 million. Adjusted net loss (non-GAAP) widened 19.7 percent to CNY193.6 million, it said.

Zhihu’s cost of revenue almost doubled to CNY206 million from CNY110 million a year ago, mainly because of higher advertising and content-related costs as well as higher expenses for cloud services and bandwidth.

Costs for sales and marketing, research and development and administrative also climbed again in the period. The former surged 177 percent to CNY346 million from CNY125 million at the same point last year.

Zhihu held a series of branding events as January marked its 10th anniversary. That drove up sales and marketing expenses, Chief Financial Officer Sun Wei stated on an earnings conference call.

Online advertising revenue climbed 70 percent to CNY214 million, while falling as a percentage of total revenue to 45 percent from 62 percent for the whole of last year. The uptick in advertising income came mainly from the rapid growth of brand advertising, Sun said.

Paid membership revenue shot up 127 percent to CNY127 million, and income from content-commerce solutions was CNY121 million, reaching 89 percent of last year's revenue.

Zhihu's average number of monthly active users was 85 million in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of almost 38 percent, and its average monthly paying members rose to 4 million, a year-on-year gain of 138 percent.

Shares of Zhihu [NYSE:ZH] closed down 1.3 percent yesterday at USD7.89.

Editor: Tom Litting