NEW YORK, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese online group discounter Pinduoduo Inc. started trading on Nasdaq Stock Market on Thursday.

The company, trading under the ticker symbol of "PDD", announced its IPO of 85,600,000 American depositary shares (ADSs) at a price to the public of 19.0 U.S. dollars per ADS for a total offering size of approximately 1.63 billion dollars, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their option to purchase additional ADSs.

Each ADS represents four Class A ordinary shares of the Company.

Pinduoduo started trading at 26.50 U.S. dollars per share on Thursday, climbing 34.37 percent from its pricing, and was traded at 25.53 dollars apiece around midday.

The fund raised will be used mainly to expand the company's business operations, promote research and development, and enhance its technology infrastructure, said its prospectus.

Founded in 2015, the e-commerce platform provides buyers with value-for-money merchandise and interactive shopping experiences.

It has become one of the leading Chinese e-commerce players in terms of gross merchandise volume (GMV) and the number of total orders.

Its GMV in the twelve-month period ending June 30, 2018 was 262.1 billion yuan. Meanwhile, the number of total orders placed on Pinduoduo mobile platform reached 7.5 billion during the same period, according to its prospectus.

Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, China International Capital Corporation and China Renaissance acted as joint bookrunners for the offering.