But in an environment where investors appear unwilling to invest in Internet companies unless they show a clear path to profitability, Lai did not provide revenue targets or say when Netease might show earnings."Our management is driven to move to that horizon point as quickly as possible," said Lai, when asked in the interview about profitability prospects.

Beijing-based Netease made its IPO in late June at $15.50 a share. It's shares ended Nasdaq trade on Monday at $6.0625. Investors have also punished recently listed rival Sohu.com, whose shares are off more than 50 per cent from their $13 IPO price. "I'm pretty negative on portals right now," said UBSWarburg analyst Jasmine Koh in Hong Kong.

Lai stressed that China's Internet market was a young one, and noted that registered user growth for Netease surged by 158 per cent in the first half of the year to 5.9 million - even faster than a near doubling in overall mainland usage to 17 million.

Still, advertising and E-commerce revenues in China are scant and expected by many to remain so in the near-and-medium-term. Netease on Monday reported a quarterly loss of $3.3 million on revenue of $1.7 million. Lai said he was pleased with the results as they showed vigorous growth from what he acknowledged was a small base. In its IPO Netease raised $62.6 million, and had cash on hand at the end of June of 857.9 million yuan ($103.5 million).

Lai said Netease's cash "burn rate" - a measure of how quickly early stage Internet firms spend to fuel growth - would be about about $1.7 million a month for the remainder of the year, compared with about $1.2 million in the second quarter.