Shares of China’s largest social networking firm Renren have lost almost all the gains made since its US stock market debut last week, trading down 8%. The drop follows lingering accounting concerns and fears of further regulation and censorship from China’s government.
The stock, which gained 24% on last Wednesday when it played its debut on the New York Stock Exchange at $14, lost 6.33% the next day, 0.41% on last Friday and 4.58% on this Monday, up to 9% to $14.52 on Tuesday.
Analysts said the decrease mainly due to lingering accounting concerns and fears of Renren being further regulated or even censored by China’s government.
Renren is hoping to replicate the blowout success of another Chinese internet company, Qihoo 360 Technology, which sold $176m worth of shares in March on the Nasdaq, the US technology stock market.
Qihoo’s share price shot up 136% on its first day of trading.
However, Renren’s offering on the New York Stock Exchange has been controversial.
Renren, operating social networking, online commerce, gaming and, made a pre-IPO announcement that it had 160 million registered users which was modified to a total of 31 million active monthly users.
In addition, Renren adjusted down the figures for its monthly unique log-in users for the first quarter of 2011, from seven million to five million.