China website seeks US listing

Website has more than 16 million hits per day

Sina.com has become the first website based on the Chinese mainland to seek a stock market listing in New York.

The portal, which offers Chinese language news, entertainment, commercial and community services, has a network of four websites produced by local teams in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States.

"The company has filed an application to list the shares on the Nasdaq national market under the symbol SINA," it said in a statement.

"Net proceeds of the offering are expected to be used for working capital and other general corporate purposes."

Rush to float

Sina has registered an offering of four million ordinary shares, plus another 600,000 shares targeted at the firms underwriting the deal.

The number of Chinese surfers doubles every six months

Chinese websites have been rushing to get a listing since the success of Hong Kong-based China.com, which floated on Nasdaq last year.

That generated an investor frenzy and China.com's shares tripled on the first day of trade.

Sina might be the first mainland business to apply for a listing, but others are not far behind.

Investment restrictions

Portals Sohu.com and Netease.com, have applications in the pipeline with Chinese regulators.

There is some concern in Beijing about foreign companies taking control of Chinese internet companies, most of which were set up with foreign capital.

Restrictions are now in place to limit foreign investment, although long-standing companies have found ways of getting round them to work towards flotation.

Sina's backers include Dell Computers and Japanese IT giant Softbank.

Top site

It has been voted top Chinese language site in two recent surveys.

The company said it was getting about 16.6 million hits per day in February, and had 3.1 million registered users.

Despite the restrictions on investment and content, China is seen as one of the internet's boom areas.

The number of users is estimated at 10 million, and is doubling every six months.

It is predicted that by 2005, China will have the greatest number of surfers after the US.