Newegg.com, a popular online retailer among computer and electronics enthusiasts, announced that it would file for an initial public offer (IPO) hoping to raise $175 million. The venture-capital backed company revealed its plans in a regulatory SEC filing that also shows that the company has been profitable for every year since 2001, the year it was founded. An expected date for the IPO hasn't been set.

“We [Newegg] have built a strong brand and a loyal customer base consisting primarily of IT professionals, gamers, do-it-yourself technology enthusiasts, early technology adopters and CE enthusiasts. In 2008, we attracted 70.7% of the unique daily visitors to our U.S. website without incurring a referral, click-through or advertising fee, and generated 74.1% of our U.S. orders from customers who have previously purchased from us,” claims the company in the filing.

The company has grown steadily since it was launched reaching almost $1 billion in sales in 2004 and doubling by 2008 when it managed to generate sales of $2.1 billion, which it says adds up to a compound annual growth rate of 21.1 percent. Those are pretty strong numbers for a niche company that competes with heavyweights like Amazon. Income though is somewhat on the lower end with operating income for 2008 at $54.1 million and net income at just $28.4 million.

The low income figures can be attributed to the company's very sharp profit margins, which come in at just 1.4 percent in 2008, half those of competitor Amazon, which boasts profit margins of 3.3 percent for the same year. Newegg has to keep the figures down as online retail is a very tough business with a very crowded market.

Newegg expects increased competition in the field, noting Circuit City Stores, which still runs a dedicated website despite going bankrupt last year, in the filing. The company has ambitious plans and will use the money it will raise in the IPO to spearhead efforts into Canada and China where it already has a presence albeit a rather small one.