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Sunday, 03 August 2008 11:06 |
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In a recent round of financing, Shanghai-based 51.com, one of China’s leading social networking sites, raised USD $51 million from Chinese online gaming company, Giant Interactive. The $51 million, buys Nasdaq listed Giant Interactive, a 25% stake in Five One Network Development Company Ltd, which operates 51.com. According to some reports on the Internet, Jack Ma, founder and CEO of Alibaba.com, was also involved in talks to buy into 51.com, but apparently, Giant Interactive offered a higher figure.
Figures released in June this year by 51.com, show the site has 120 million registered users and 31.5 million monthly visits. Founded in Shanghai in 2005, and with its extremely solid user-base, it is having no trouble holding its ground against foreign intruders, such as Myspace and Facebook, which both opened Asian operations recently. Social networking sites account for a substantial proportion of Internet traffic in China’s booming Internet industry. The Chinese online community, the largest in the world with 253 million users, is still growing at a tremendous rate and the huge numbers of online Chinese still represent only 16% of the overall population; the market offers immense potential for investors. 51.com is reported saying that it has no plans to hold any further rounds of financing and that it intends to go public in 2010.
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