Renren listing: sign of dot-com bubble 2.0?
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The high cost of the stock means Renren has some serious convincing to do. According to Guangdong's Xinkuai News, the company is using more than just its 117 million-user social network as a selling point to Wall Street investors. The company has bundled and collectively listed its Renren Network, Renren Games, Nuomi group-buying service and newly launched Jingwei Network – close analogues to America's Facebook, Zynga, Groupon and LinkedIn – hoping to dispel foreign investors' worries about whether a social networking service alone can turn a profit.
Bundling the businesses makes sense. Unlike Facebook, Renren generates much of its revenue from online games. Only 42 percent of Renren's 2010 revenue came from ads, while its gaming business brought in 45 percent. In this sense, Renren is much more like Zynga than it is Facebook. It makes most of its money selling in-game virtual items such as accessories and pets to its users.
Nuomi, on the other hand, represents a tiny but potentially lucrative addition to the package. The Groupon-like service, launched in June 2010 just as group-buying began taking off in China, produced less than 2 percent of the company's 2010 revenue. Still, its contribution could grow substantially as the size of the group-buying market in China expands. Last year, the Chinese group buying sites produced about $1.7 billion in total revenue, according to a report by EnfoCapital.
Competition in the market is fierce; there are now more than 1,800 Chinese group-buying companies. Still, Nuomi currently ranks third by market share behind competitors Lashou and Meituan with 17.3 percent of industry sales, according to a report released in January by the China e-Business Research Center.
The makings of a bubble?
In the wake of spectacular listings by Youku, Qihoo 360 and Renren and sky-high valuations for Facebook ($65 billion) and Twitter ($5 billion), American capital markets may be becoming more cautious of overvalued tech firms.
In March, multi-billionaire investor Warren Buffett warned that social media networks may prove to be the next dot-com bubble.
"Most of them will be overpriced," Buffett said in an interview with Bloomberg News. "It's extremely difficult to value social-networking-site companies. Some will be huge winners, which will make up for the rest."
A number of well-known Chinese web industry insiders hold similar views, including Innovation Works CEO Li Kaifu, Zero2IPO CEO Ni Zhengdong, Northern Light Venture Capital founder Deng Feng, Microsoft China R&D head Zhang Yaqin, former Sina CEO Wang Zhidong, and A8 Music CEO Liu Xiaosong. They believe a bubble has formed in the dot-com capital market, which has led to the overvaluation of Chinese web companies.
Some analysts argue that dot com IPOs may be at last hitting their peak, with suitable firms lining up to get a listing as soon as possible and those that still aren't ready potentially missing the last train.
Baidu CEO Robin Li has bluntly advised companies considering a listing to seize the opportunity before it passes.
"If anyone has a company nearly ready for a listening, I think it is a good time." Li said. "Hurry up. Take your company public and get financing.
"Even if you still have some distance from an IPO, I still think going public now is a good idea," he added.
Revenue from Renren has grown by leaps and bounds since its acquisition in 2006, tripling in 2009 and expanding 64 percent in 2010.
But do strong sales growth and a massive potential market justify the high valuation of its stock?
Investors seem to think so – at least for now. Renren shares gained 30 percent on its first day of trading in New York, closing at $18.01 Wednesday afternoon.
