Netease Youdao debuts on NYSE

NetEase Youdao, online education subsidiary of Chinese tech giant NetEase Inc, made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange late on Friday, despite an overall downturn of the online education sector in the country.

Listed under DAO, the company priced its initial public offering at $17 per American depository receipt, and stated it seeks to raise $220 million in total.

Immediately after its trading debut, its shares fell to at $13.75 per share, lower than its offering price.

"Overall, online education will be a promising sector in the future. We will continue to beef up our products to make them competitive," said Zhou Feng, CEO of NetEase Youdao.

NetEase, as China's second-largest gaming publisher, merged earlier this year with its education unit in Hangzhou to form NetEase Youdao. The unit in Hangzhou used to cover business including online career education, online coding courses and massive open online courses.

The latest data showed that it has gathered over 100 million average monthly active users in the first half of this year.