Chinese podcast platform LIZHI debuts on Nasdaq

LIZHI, a Chinese interactive podcast platform for user-generated content (UGC), rang the opening bell at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square on Friday in celebration of its initial public offering (IPO).

The company, trading under the ticker symbol of "LIZI," announced its IPO of 4.1 million American depositary shares (ADSs), each representing 20 Class A ordinary shares of the company, at a price to the public of US$11 apiece.

LIZHI started trading at US$11.03 per share on Friday, and jumped 5.73 percent from its pricing to close at US$11.63 apiece.

Founded in 2010, the Guangzhou-based company launched the Lizhi app in 2013 to allow users to record and share their lives with voices on mobile devices with the help of intuitive recording, and to reach their audience through various discovery tools.

It has become the largest online UGC audio community in China as of September 30, 2019, said the company, citing the consulting firm iResearch.

Marco Lai, founder and chief executive officer of LIZHI, told Xinhua that the public listing is a key step of the company's global strategy, adding the company plans to use the proceeds from this offering to invest in product development and its Artificial Intelligence technology.

China has a huge online audio market and is also a global leader in online audio product innovations, which shall offer great opportunities to the future development for the company, said Lai.

China is the world's second largest online audio market by revenue, which represents approximately 15 percent of the global online audio market in 2018, according to industry data.

The number of Chinese firms listed on the US exchanges has increased in recent years. As of Thursday, the S&P US Listed China 50 index, which is designed to track the performance of the 50 largest Chinese companies listed on US exchanges by total market cap, stood at 3,429.36, marking an 8.28-percent gain for year-to-date returns.