Baidu Travel Site Qunar Plans U.S. IPO In 2012 - Investor's Business Daily
Chinese travel site Qunar.com, which is majority owned by Baidu (BIDU), is planning an IPO in the U.S. next year, as rival Google (GOOG) ramps up its own push into the online travel market.
Baidu, China's top search site, agreed in June to pay $306 million for the Qunar stake. But the IPO announcement comes amid market volatility that's prompted Groupon to delay an eagerly awaited IPO and as other Chinese stocks have fizzled after their debuts.
Shares of Baidu edged lower as of 11:45 a.m. ET and are heading toward the 50-day moving average, while Google was up about 1.5%. Other Chinese Web stocks like Sina (SINA) and Youku (YOKU) were falling. Chinese travel site Ctrip.com (CTRP) was also down.
Qunar was founded in 2005 and is seen as profitable. Travel booking online in China is still underpenetrated compared to the U.S., though online reservation systems for Chinese airlines and hotels are considered underdeveloped.
But several Chinese stocks that went public recently have fallen below their IPO price. E-Commerce China Dangdang (DANG), for example, spiked in its trading debut in December, but the stock price is now more than half its initial pricing.
Baidu has been expanding beyond search, but its travel effort comes as Google begins to roll out its own flight search tool, made possible by its $676 million acquisition of ITA Software.
Initial reviews note Google's tool is faster than rivals but doesn't offer as many flight listing as do competitors like Expedia (EXPE), Orbitz Worldwide (OWW) and Priceline.com (PCLN).
17 Sep, 2011--
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