"At the moment, the number of followers of Sputnik China's account in [the Chinese social network] Weibo is about 9 millions. This figure is much bigger than the one of several western media outlets and western diplomatic missions that have been actively using the Chinese social media in recent years," Kiselev said at a meeting of Russian and Chinese news outlets' leadership.
The Rossiya Segodnya head added that, for example, The Financial Times had about 1.5 million followers and the Kyodo Tsushin news outlet had about 3 million followers.
Sputnik is a news agency and radio network with multimedia news hubs in dozens of countries. Sputnik broadcasts through its websites in over 30 languages, as well as analog and digital radio, mobile apps and social media. Sputnik newswires, available by subscription, run around the clock in English, Arabic, Spanish and Chinese.