China's online cosmetics retailer Jumei soars on US market trading debut

Jumei International Holding Limited, China's leading online retailer of beauty products, saw its shares surged after its first trading day on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Friday. Jumei announced Friday that it has priced its initial public offering (IPO) of 11.14 million American depositary shares (ADSs) at 22.00 U.S. dollars per ADS for a total offering size of approximately 245.1 million dollars, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their option to purchase additional ADSs, Jumei said in a statement. Jumei's shares were traded under the ticker symbol "JMEI," with each ADS representing one Class A ordinary share of the company. Jumei shares opened at 27.25 dollars per share before finishing 9.91 percent higher to end at 24.18 dollars apiece after its first day of trading. Leo Ou Chen, founder and chief executive officer of Jumei, told Xinhua that he is satisfied with the company's stocks performance. "Bucking the trend of the current volatile market, the surge of Jumei's shares suggested investor and market recognition for the company." Jumei's IPO will help the company "cooperate with international brands and partners to better serve its domestic consumers," Chen said. Mark Otto, partner at J.Streicher & Co. LLC and a trader at the NYSE, said that it's pleasant to see Jumei's shares post robust gains at its trading debut."Definitely, there has been a lot of interests in it, so the volume is extraordinary." Jumei has grown rapidly and substantially since it launched its website jumei.com in March 2010. According to a report from research firm Frost & Sullivan, Jumei is China's No. 1 online retailer of beauty products as measured by gross merchandise volume with a market share of 22.1 percent in 2013. Otto told Xinhua that the success with this company in particular is its speciality of selling cosmetics online as a major focus. Unlike general category e-commerce companies such as Alibaba, Jumei is "very much a speciality niche," he said. "There are so many people in China that are certainly utilizing internet and that's only going to expand, especially with the onset of the urbanization in China. So I think that all these factors come into play and benefit this company." "Their success going forward is going to be brilliant," Otto stressed. In the first quarter of 2014, approximately 49 percent of Jumei 's gross merchandise volume was generated through its mobile application, the company said. Jumei's current sales formats consist of curated sales, online shopping mall and flash sales, it added. To guarantee the genuineness of its products, Jumei has launched cosmetic anti-fake code system that makes its internet platform a trusted destination for consumers to discover and purchase branded beauty products, the company said. According to Chen, Jumei also cooperated with branded foreign cosmetic companies to obtain franchises for selling beauty products in China to prevent the issue of counterfeit products from the very source. Meanwhile, China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. last Tuesday filed its IPO in the United States, planning to raise 1 billion dollars. But analysts predicted that the company could fund around 15 billion dollars to 20 billion dollars through its IPO, which is expected to be one of the largest stock listings in history. Earlier this year, China's IT education provider Tarena International, privately held medical services provider iKang Healthcare Group, micro-blogging site Weibo, online-to-offline real estate services firm Leju and online leisure travel company Tuniu, as well as Cheetah mobile have listed shares in the U.S. market.