Renren Inc., China’s biggest social- networking website by page views, surged 29 percent in New York Stock Exchange trading after raising $743.4 million in its initial public offering.

The Beijing-based company sold 53.1 million American depositary receipts at $14 each, the high end of the proposed range, according to a company statement yesterday. The stock rose $4.01 to $18.01 as of 4 p.m. yesterday. Including the sale of 7.97 million ADRs sold through an overallotment option with underwriters, Renren’s IPO raised $855 million.

At its $14 initial price, Renren would be valued at 72 times last year’s sales, compared with 25 times for social- networking site Facebook Inc. as valued by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s investment in the U.S. company. Renren commands a premium because China’s economy may grow three times faster than the U.S. and about two-thirds of the population isn’t online.

“Worldwide internet players that leverage social networks and monetize them well will have a very good chance at high growth and a chance to go public,” said David Chao, co-founder of the Menlo Park, California-based venture capital firm DCM, who says his fund has given Renren about $20 million. “This is a really good time for a lot of companies in China that have been growing very well because the overall market in China is growing very rapidly.”

Sina, Tencent Renren, which also offers games and daily deals for consumers, is the first social-networking site to go public in the U.S. and will use proceeds to expand in the world’s biggest Internet market by users. Renren faces competition for advertisers and users from local Internet companies Sina Corp. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. (TCEHY)

Sina, owner of China’s most-popular microblogging site, fell 2.8 percent in U.S. trading yesterday. Other U.S.-traded Chinese Internet stocks including Baidu Inc. and Sohu.com Inc. also declined.