Acorn International Inc. shares rose as much as 46 percent in the Chinese TV home shopping company's U.S. market debut on Thursday, part of a renewed interest in initial public offerings from China.

IPOs from China were hot in 2006, attracting investors with staggering prospects for growth based in large part on the country's massive population.

However, investor sentiment cooled earlier this year after tumbles in Shanghai's benchmark stock index in February and April.

But the index has rebounded sharply in recent weeks.

Acorn uses television infomercials on four nationwide China Central Television channels, 28 national satellite TV channels, four international satellite channels operating in China, and eight local channels, according to an amended offering document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

American depositary shares of Acorn opened up 28 percent at $19.90 on Thursday and climbed to $22.70 in late-morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, which has 24 listed companies from China. Shares later fell back to $20.85 for a gain of 34.5 percent.

Each ADS represents three ordinary shares.

"Clearly we are past the meltdowns as deals have found their footing," said Ben Holmes, publisher of Morningnotes.com, an independent research company in Boulder, Colorado.

In another IPO from China on Thursday, cell phone maker Qiao Xing Mobile Communication Co. Ltd. (QXM.N: Quote, Profile, Research opened flat, rose as much as 4 percent to $12.45 before falling back to $12.14, up about 1 percent from its offering price.

"(Qiao Xing) is not in the same league as Acorn, but it's not a failure by any means," Holmes said. "But we really can't generalize about the region until we see more pricings."

On Wednesday, Acorn raised $119.35 million from its U.S. IPO of 7.7 million ADS at $15.50 each, above the forecast price range of $12.50 to $14.50.

The company will only receive proceeds from the 1 million ADS it sold. Stockholders offered the remaining 6.7 million.

The offering price gave the company an initial market capitalization of $463 million.

Based in Shanghai, Acorn plans to use net proceeds from the offering, which represents a 26 percent stake in the company, for capital expenditures, working capital and general corporate purposes.

Underwriters, led by Deutsche Bank Securities and Merrill Lynch & Co., have the option to buy an additional 1.2 million ADS to cover over-allotments.