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Networking site 51.com aims for listing in US

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Social networking website 51.com, the mainland's answer to MySpace, plans to list in the United States by the end of next year, creating a company worth between US$2 billion and US$3 billion.

One of the largest social networking sites on the mainland, 51.com has 120 million registered users, of whom 50 million log in at least once a month.

Co-founded by Zhang Jiangfu in 2003 in Fujian as 10770.com, the site changed its name to 51.com after chief executive and co-founder Pang Shengdong bought it in 2005. The headquarters were moved to Shanghai.

'It is like MySpace of China,' said Jacky Huang, a senior internet analyst at IDC China. 'It started with lots of beautiful girls posting blogs on the site. This drew many other users.'

Mr Pang said while other social networking sites focused on a niche audience - Xiaonei.com for high school and college students and Hainei.com for people with an information technology background - 51.com targeted all internet users.

The average 51.com user is aged between 23 and 25, similar to the average internet user on the mainland.

Beijing market research firm Analysys estimated revenue from China's Web2.0 market, including blogs and social network sites, will reach 2.144 billion yuan (HK$2.46 billion) by year-end.

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