JD Shares are off to a bullish start in their debut on the Nasdaq.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) Shares in JD.com, a giant Chinese e-commerce company, surged more than 10% in their market debut Thursday. That appears to be a good sign for Alibaba, the online retailing leader often referred to as the eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500)and Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) of China.The initial public offering of JD.com is the latest in a series of companies that are choosing to list in the United States. JD raised just under $1.8 billion in the stock sale. At its most recent price, the company was worth around $30 billion.
JD.com (JD) shares began trading on the Nasdaq Thursday under the ticker "JD" and priced at $19 a share. They were initially set to sell for between $16 and $18, demonstrating a high demand for the stock.
With just under 36 million active accounts and 212 million orders last year, the company said it had 45% of the Chinese direct retail market in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And while it draws comparisons to Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500), JD.com is a far smaller company when compared to Amazon's $135.8 billion market cap.
But JD.com is the second-biggest Chinese online retailer behind Alibaba, whose shares are expected to debut in the U.S. sometime during the next few months. Alibaba could raise more than the $16 billion Facebook (FB, Fortune 500) raised in its IPO.
JD.com is the latest in a number of big Chinese tech IPOs this year. But several of them have fizzled after hot starts. Weibo (WB), the Twitter-like social media site owned by Sina (SINA), is down nearly 10% from where it began trading last month. Jumei International Holding (JMEI), a cosmetics website that debuted last week, is now barely above its IPO price.
Still, a quick look at JD.com's financials shows why investors were so excited Thursday. It had $6.8 billion in sales in 2012, nearly double what it was doing the year before. The first nine months of last year brought in $8 billion.
But the company isn't profitable. It lost $542 million in 2012, a bigger loss than in 2011. JD.com said it lost $343 million in the first three quarters of 2013.
Tencent, the large Chinese company which owns the popular WeChat messaging app and is considered a rival to Alibaba, has a 15% stake in JD.com. Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia also owns a big chunk of shares. Both high-profile shareholders add to the appeal of JD.com.
Now investors have to sit back and wait for more details from Alibaba. It's still not clear what exchange it will list on, ! what its ticker symbol will be, what it will price its offering at or when it will begin trading. But if the reception for JD is any indication, demand should be very strong for the online empire created by Jack Ma. That could be good news for Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) as well. It owns a more than 20% stake in Alibaba. 
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