Facebook IPO likely to boost China's SNS

SHANGHAI, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Facebook's planned initial public offering (IPO) is likely to give impetus to China's social networking service (SNS) and boost its development, industry insiders say.

Facebook filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday to raise 5 billion U.S. dollars in a preliminary IPO, one of the largest technology offering so far.

"Facebook's IPO is a milestone event in the global Internet arena," said Cheng Binghao, chief executive officer of China's top SNS site Kaixin.

"In the next few years, SNS sites will become the mainstream of the Internet, and the IPO of Facebook will make more people realize the change," Cheng told reporters in an interview.

Fang Xingdong, founder of blogchina.com and web research consultancy chinalabs.com, said many venture capitalists would benefit enormously from the IPO.

"The move will also fortify market confidence over investment in the Internet," Fang said.

Thanks to the news of Facebook's IPO, China's SNS sites have witnessed a dramatic rise in stock market. Shares of New York-listed Chinese social networking company Renren Inc., which is dubbed China's "Facebook," rose 33 percent from last Thursday to Tuesday this week, while shares of NASDAQ-listed Sina Corp., owner of China's popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblog service, rose 18.8 percent over the same period.

SNS sites have mushroomed in China in recent years and some of them have successfully listed on overseas stock markets.