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"Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly planning on making his second visit to\u00A0China as the world's biggest social networking company continues to look for the best way to expand into the country that holds the world's biggest Internet population.\r\n\r\nDespite earlier reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg\u00A0had different views about entering China, Sandberg makes it clear that they both actually agree on the importance of China. She told Reuters:\r\n&amp;quot;Our company mission is really clear, which is we want to connect the whole world, and it's impossible to think about connecting the whole world right now without also connecting China.&amp;quot;\r\nChina is currently the world\u2019s largest Internet market by user volume, and despite Facebook being blocked in the country, it's a hard market to ignore.\u00A0Zuckerberg visited China in December and met with the heads of Chinese Internet companies including Baidu, Sina and Alibaba, which sparked speculation on a\u00A0partnership with a local Chinese Internet firm to operate in the country.\r\n\r\nSandberg said the timing and the agenda of the trip was undetermined, but that Zuckerberg, who is currently studying Chinese, would probably return this year.\r\n\r\nIn the same report, Sandberg also described a public offering of Facebook shares as &amp;quot;inevitable,&amp;quot; without providing details on when Facebook expects to have an IPO.\r\n&amp;quot;It's a process that all companies go through. It's an inevitable process for us, the next thing that happens,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;No one is buying us, we're going public.&amp;quot;\r\nSandberg said the LinkedIn IPO, whose shares more than doubled after making its debut as a publicly traded company,\u00A0validated the importance of the business behind social networking.\r\n\r\nAccording to market research firm eMarketer,\u00A0Facebook is expected to generate roughly $4 billion in advertising revenue in 2011, up from $1.86 billion a year earlier, not to mention hopes of amassing one billion users within the year. Entry to China and funds from an IPO would definitely help the social network achieve that."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/05/20/facebook-coo-hints-at-china-entry-ipo/>