(Yicai Global) Aug. 11 -- Chinese search engine Sogou has majorly narrowed its net loss in the second quarter, according to an earnings report that could become its last as a listed company.

Sogou's net loss declined to USD5.5 million from USD31.6 million from a quarter earlier, the Beijing-based firm said in the report published yesterday. Its revenue had fallen 14 percent to USD261 million.

On July 27, the company said that Tencent Holdings, its largest shareholder, has offered to buy the remaining shares for USD9 apiece. That would mean that the firm that went public in November 2017 would get delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

The company's board of directors has not yet evaluated Tencent's offer, the firm said yesterday. It will create an independent committee to study the deal to maximize shareholders' interests, it added.

Chief Executive Wang Xiaochuan wrote a WeChat post to say that he was grateful for Tencent to recognize the internet company's value, technical competence, and innovation prowess, but some relevant issues will still need to be discussed to assure that the firm creates greater value for its users.

Sohu.Com and its CEO Zhang Chaoyang collectively hold a bit more than 40 percent of Sogou's shares. Losing the search engine would mean giving up on half of Sohu.Com's revenue streams, according to the internet portal's earnings report published yesterday.

Sogou's user numbers grew gradually in the second quarter. The number of daily active users of the company's phone keyboard input method rose by 6 percent to 484 million from a year ago. Its dictation service had more than 1.4 billion daily inputs on average.

By the end of June, Sogou had widened its cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments to USD1.2 billion from USD1.1 billion logged in late December.

Sogou's stock price [NYSE: SOGO] slid 0.58 percent to USD8.56 yesterday.

Editor: Chen Juan, Emmi Laine