Xinhua website to offer $158 million IPO

China's state news agency Xinhua plans to list its online portal in a 1 billion yuan ($157.8 million) stock market offering in Shanghai with China International Capital Corp underwriting the deal.

The exact timing of the initial public offering of Xinhuanet.com has not been fixed.

"It's around 1 billion yuan", said a source.

Other state news outlets are also looking to list their online operations. People.com.cn, the online news portal run by the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party - the People's Daily - is looking to list in Shanghai.

China Mobile and Xinhua launch Internet Search Engine

China Mobile Ltd, the world's biggest mobile operator, and state-run Xinhua News Agency have jointly launched an Internet search engine.

The search engine, http://www.panguso.com/ , would be operated by a joint venture company set up by the two, and would also be available for mobile users, they said in a statement carried by Xinhua.

With more than 450 million users, China is the world's largest Internet market.

Its search market grew 67 percent in the fourth quarter to 3.2 billion yuan ($486.8 million), with Baidu Inc holding a dominant 73 percent of the market by revenue compared with Google Inc's 24 percent, according to data from iResearch.