RenRen – “the Chinese Facebook” – expects to make $30 million revenue during the quarter in which it went public on the Nasdaq last month.
Posting its first earnings since May’s IPO, RenRen said that, during the year’s first three months, it slimmed its net loss by 78.5 percent to $2.6 million. Revenue jumped by 46 percent to $20.6 million, after advertising income doubled to $8.1 million (release).
“Our recent IPO has helped heighten RenRen brand awareness and popularity among our users, business partners, advertisers and future employee,” according to CEO Joseph Chen.
The company says China’s social network market is booming. Diandian, a Tumblr-esque startup, claims to be growing five times faster than Facebook did at the same point in its history. RenRen wants to capitalise by using some of the $779 million raised in its float to invest in R&D, sales and marketing, acquisitions and partnerships.
RenRen’s Nasdaq price grew from $7.03 to to $7.6 on the news Monday, but closed back at $7.21 Tuesday.
Separately, following the IPO of Chinese video website Youku, a peer, 56.com, expects to turn its first profit this year.