With everyone fixating on China's largest e-commerce company Alibaba's next move, Qunar, a Baidu-backed Chinese online travel service, made its own move stateside.

Qunar filed on Monday for an initial public offering (IPO) of $125 million - which would be the biggest initial public offering by a Chinese company in two years - on the New York Stock Exchange, where it plans to sell shares under the symbol QUNR.

The lead underwriters for the Qunar IPO are Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Deutsche Bank AG and Stifel.

Qunar started out in 2005 as the "Kayak of China", allowing users to find the best deals on air or rail tickets, hotels, vacation packages and other travel products. The company claimed to be the most visited travel website in China among online travel users, citing a report it commissioned from Nielsen.

China's largest search engine Baidu became the majority shareholder of Qunar in 2011 with a $306 million investment.

The travel site has grown significantly since its inception. According to its IPO prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revenue grew from $20.24 million in 2010 to $81.7 million in 2012. However, the company's net loss has reached $14.8 million in 2012 and $2.8 million in the recent six months ending June 30, 2013.

The travel site had 203.2 million registered users as of June 30, 2013. The number of Qunar's mobile users grew from 0.2million in 2010 to 21.9million in 2012, and 39.6 million in the 12-month period ended June 30, 2013. The company makes money mainly from its pay-for-performance service, which brought in $68.9 million in 2012.

Baidu holds 61.05 percent of the company's shares. Other shareholders include Forlongwiz Holdings Limited (7.17 percent) and GSR Ventures (6.27 percent).

The number of Chinese IPOs in the US has fallen from 41 in 2010 to 12 in 2011. Only four Chinese companies have listed on US stock markets since 2012, including flash-sales retailer VipShop Holdings Ltd, social communications service YY Inc, and Beijing-based online retailer LightinthBox Holding Co.

"On average, there is more demand for any IPOs right now, which is due tothe good stock market conditions and performance of recent IPOs," said Josef Schuster, president of IPOX Schuster, an IPO research and investment firm in Chicago. "Having in mind that large-scale investors currently gravitate towards US domiciled IPOs and there is still a 'bad taste in the mouth' for Chinese IPOs due to the various accounting scandals we have had on average, Chinese IPOs should also benefit from these improving conditions no matter what."

"I doubt, however, that we will see a big wave of Chinese deals, but I expect decent take-up of Chinese deals in certain sectors," Schuster added.

Several Chinese companies were expected to be lining up for IPOs soon in the US, such as Beijing-based classified advertisement website 58.com and Shenzhen-based lottery site 500wan.com, and if Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant Alibaba finally decides to launch its $15 billion IPO in the US, it will certainly help thaw the chilly market for China IPOs in the US.

yuwei12@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 10/02/2013 page2)