Renren Takes Lead Over Kaixin With Blockbuster Filing 人人网：风风火火IPO 气势盖过开心

By newsdoug on April 18, 2011

After reporting last week about the race to market between Chinese social networking sites Renren and Kaixin Wang (previous post), Renren appears to have taken the early lead by filing for an IPO worth up to $500 million — likely to be China’s biggest Internet listing of the year. (English article; Chinese article) Clearly Renren’s more established status, coupled with support from Japan’s Softbank, one of Renren’s largest investors, is pushing this one to market more quickly than younger and less nimble Kaixin. In my last Renren takes early lead over Kaixin posting I said the winner of this race would get a big premium as China’s first social networking site to list, but in fact the winner would be the world’s first such major site to go public, beating out even global leader Facebook. That makes the race even more interesting, and the stakes even higher if Renren gets there first. Media reports say Renren lists Internet giants Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) and Tencent (HKEx: 700) as rivals, but it seems to have largely forgotten Kaixin. Talk about downplaying the competition. Given its longer history, better global connections and status as first to make a public filing, it looks like Renren has gained an early lead in this race.

Bottom line: Renren has an early lead in its race to market with Kaixin, positioning itself to earn a massive premium for its investors if it becomes the world’s first major SNS to go public.

上周曝出人人网、开心网竞相上市後，人人网已经提交了五亿美元IPO申请，目前似乎领跑一个身位，有可能成为年度最大规模的中国互联网企业上市案例。显然，人人网地位更稳，比之成立时间相对较短、且灵活度较低的开心网，人人上市走得更快。我在之前的文章中说过，这场比赛的赢家将成为中国首个上市的社交网络企业，因此可以在IPO时取得较大溢价，但事实上赢家还能赶在全球头号社交网络Facebook之前，成为全球首家上市的社交网络企业。这样一来，这个比赛有更有看点了，如果人人领先一步上市，其得到的回报也会更高。根据媒体报导，人人网将互联网巨头百度与腾讯视为竞争对手，但似乎已不太重视开心对其的威胁。考虑到人人网创立时间更久、全球关系更好且首先提交上市申请，看来人人网在比赛刚开始就获得了领跑优势。

一句话：人人网、开心网上市大PK，人人网起跑抢占上风。如果最终成为全球首家最先上市的社交网络企业，人人网将会为投资者争得巨大溢价。