The Netflix of China is on a hot streak with millennial investors

Reuters/Brendan McDermid

Yu Gong, Founder and CEO of Chinese streaming platform iQiyi Inc., and Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, ring the opening bell at the Nasdaq Market Site to celebrate iQiyi Inc.'s initial public offering (IPO) in New York City.

• iQiyi is flying up the ranks of Robinhood's top stocks.
• Shares of the Chinese video service are up 90% since its IPO in March.
• Baidu, China's largest search engine, owns an 18% stake in the company.

The Netflix of China is continuing to rise in popularity among millennial investors.

Data from the stock trading app Robinhood - whose usership skews markedly younger than traditional brokerages - show iQiyi is now the 42nd most popular stock. It's gained 32 spots in the app's popularity ranking since last week, surpassing Dropbox, GM, and other more well-known companies.

The surge, which was first reported by Business Insider last week, mirrors a similar rise in share prices of the company, up 81% in the past month.

Ten-year-old iQiyi went public in March after being spun off by the Chinese search giant Baidu in an initial public offering that raised $2.25 billion for the video service. It currently boasts 20 million subscribers. For comparison, Netflix has more than 100 million worldwide, but Chinese regulations have hindered its expansion in the country.

IQiyi's post-IPO surge - a 90% gain in the roughly three months since - has led to several bullish analyst notes in recent weeks. Both Citic Securities, the investment-banking arm of the Chinese bank Citic Group, and First Shanghai upgraded shares to a "buy" rating. First Shanghai also raised its price target to $35 a share.