Beijing, January 3, 2001 - SOHU.com's Interactive Business Center has been welcomed in corporate boardrooms across China as business executives discover the power of online marketing and communications. In addition, SOHU.com's front page advertising buttons have been sold out to mostly Chinese companies that want to promote their products and services in the four-week period leading up to the Chinese New Year holiday season.

Aucma Inc., the biggest commercial freezer producer in China, employed SOHU.com's multimedia real-time Web cast to conduct a successful online road show preceding its initial public offering on the Shanghai stock exchange in mid-December. This important business event was the first multimedia real-time Web cast on an Internet portal in China, and set a precedent for how 21st century enterprises engage their markets. With over 20,000 Internet users attending the two-hour road show, more than 1,000 questions were raised with Aucma's senior management team. SOHU.com received 340,000 related page views on its home page.

"SOHU.com contributed positively to our successful equity offering of US$ 100 million in a very crowded IPO week. Through our web cast we were able to give a clear presentation so that retail investors became more informed about our company and our products. We chose the biggest portal in China so we could maximize our branding power. As a result, we educated a much wider audience at a fraction of the cost we would have incurred with off-line communications", said Lu Qunsheng, chairman of Aucma.

"Chinese companies are traditionally less sophisticated than American companies in launching pre-IPO Road Shows, but we observed an increasing number of companies using the Internet to target mass demographics. A high percentage of floated shares is traded among individuals in China, so web casts are an effective tool of communication for public companies or companies preparing for listing on Chinese stock exchanges. The Interactive Business Center offers companies both reach and impact that parallel modern marketing and communication needs", explained Wall Street veteran Sam Qian, vice-president of SOHU.com.

The Interactive Business Center on the SOHU.com Business and Finance Channel (www.biz.sohu.com) enables companies to use the Internet platform for online business activities by offering a full package of services that encompasses network road shows, web-exhibitions, web-conferencing, online consultations, training and surveys.

Throughout the year 2000, SOHU.com sales representatives witnessed a significant increase in online advertising from local enterprises, compared to the previous year in which multinational ventures constituted the highest proportion of online advertising revenues. While domestic technology companies were the first to realize the power of the Internet, more domestic industries are now beginning to see its possibilities of ebased revenue models. "Our new customer base represents increasingly diverse industries. After IT companies, producers of home appliances were among the biggest of all domestic advertisers. Other advertisers include pharmaceutical companies, postal services, fast moving consumer products and mobile phone producers", said Michael Ma, vice-president Sales of SOHU.com.

Now domestic brick-and-mortar companies are going a step further by making the Internet a core component of their business and marketing strategies. With hundreds of thousands of state and private enterprises going online, Internet services are maturing in China. By offering innovative ebusiness solutions, SOHU.com is leveraging its existing web based services to help clients build internal and external web sites. "SOHU.com's leading position as an Internet brand portal makes us the ideal partner for tailor-made ebusiness solutions, target-focused advertising and effective online marketing", said Charles Zhang, CEO and president of SOHU.com.

About SOHU.com
SOHU.com is the leading Internet portal in Mainland China with current daily page views exceeding 12 million. It provides navigation/search, news, sports, business and finance, real estate channel, entertainment, chat, email and e-commerce activities for a solid and wide base of visitors. Dr. Charles Zhang founded SOHU.com in 1997. Its investors include Intel, Dow Jones, IDG, the Morningside China Group, PCCW, Legend and Hikari. Its content partners include CNET, DOW Jones and dozens of local media organizations in China.

For further information:
Dahlia Wei
SOHU Investor Relations and Communications
Tel: +86 10 6272 6598
E-mail: ir@sohu-inc.com
http://www.sohu.com/about/English/