NEW YORK, May 22  -- China' s leading online direct sales company JD.com, Inc. Thursday successfully listed its shares on Nasdaq and recorded the largest initial public offering (IPO) by a Chinese company in the United States.

The company issued 93.685 million American Depositary Shares (ADSs), each representing two Class A ordinary shares and was priced at 19 U.S. dollars, making a total of 1.78 billion dollars.

Founder and chief executive officer of JD.com Qiangdong Liu said the company made its way from Beijing to Nasdaq after 10 years of hard work, and while Liu described the day as a milestone in JD.com's history, said it still has a long way to go in the future.

Its shares began trading on Nasdaq under the symbol "JD" and opened at 21.75 dollars, 14.5 percent higher than its IPO price and last traded at 22.55 dollars.

BofA Merrill Lynch and UBS Investment Bank acted as joint global coordinators and lead joint bookrunners for the offering. The underwriters have been granted a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 14.05 million shares from JD.com.

The company also expects to receive additional gross proceeds of 1.31 billion dollars from the issuance of 138 million Class A ordinary shares to Tencent at the IPO price in a private placement concurrent with the closing of the offering.

Jumei International Holding Limited, China's online retailer of beauty products, made its IPO debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) last Friday and raised 245.1 million dollars.

Moreover, China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. also filed its IPO documents recently, planning to raise 1 billion dollars, though analysts predicted the company could fund around 15 to 20 billion dollars and surpass JD.com's record to become the largest IPO made by a Chinese company.

Earlier this year, China's IT education provider Tarena International, privately held medical services provider iKang Healthcare Group, micro-blogging site Weibo, online-to-offline real estate services firm Leju and online leisure travel company Tuniu, as well as Cheetah mobile, have listed shares in the U.S. market.