Alhough his net worth shrunk almost 500 million yuan to 13 billion yuan this year, Li Yanhong, Robin, CEO of Chinese search engine Baidu, held on to the number one spot in the 2008 Hurun China IT Rich List.

The list was published less than two months after the release of the 2008 Hurun China Rich List.

Mang Huateng, founder of the popular Chinese IM service Tencent, and Ding Lei, founder and CEO of Chinese portal NetEase, were ranked second and third in the list.

The ranking of Chinese Internet veteran Zhang Chaoyang, founder and CEO of Sohu.com, climbed to 8th place from 22nd last year, reflecting the 84 percent surge in his net worth to 4.8 billion yuan.

Fifteen new faces appeared in this year's Hurun China IT Rich List. Among them was Meng Qingnan's family, owner of Wuhan Fingu Electronics Technology, who made it to the top 10 group with a net worth of 4.6 billion yuan.

This is the sixth Hurun China IT Rich List. Each year's list consists of the 50 wealthiest individuals in IT industries in China. The total wealth of this year's candidates was 156.3 billion yuan, a 13 percent decrease from previous year’s 180.4 billion yuan.

(China Daily November 27, 2008)