Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp (小米) yesterday launched its initial public offering (IPO), but the firm appeared likely to pull in about US$6.1 billion, far less than originally expected, with investors having mixed views about its main business.
Xiaomi had hoped to raise US$10 billion with the initial listing in Hong Kong, making it the biggest since Alibaba’s US$25 billion New York debut in 2014 and valuing the company at about US$100 billion.
However, the firm is offering 2.18 billion shares at HK$17 to HK$22 apiece, said Bloomberg News, which valued it at about US$53.9 to US$69.8 billion.
Xiaomi had hoped to be the first company to list shares in Hong Kong at the same time as launching new Chinese Depository Receipts (CDRs) in Shanghai under new rules announced in April by Chinese authorities to open up markets in the world’s No. 2 economy.
However, on Tuesday it put off its decision on listing the CDRs until it completes its IPO in Hong Kong.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission said it had canceled a listing review originally scheduled for Tuesday.
The delay, as well as differing market views about Xiaomi’s business model, were also among reasons for the lower valuation.
Xiaomi chief executive Lei Jun (雷軍) said that the company is an Internet services company making money via online games and advertisements, despite 70 percent of its revenues coming from selling hardware, particularly smartphones.
The firm, which mainly sells cheap, but high-quality smartphones in China, is looking to push into Europe — recently opening its first flagship store in Paris — as the home market reaches saturation point.
China Mobile Ltd (中國移動) and US wireless-chip giant Qualcomm Inc are among the cornerstone investors and it is expected to list on July 9.
Chinese authorities devised the CDR program, under which homegrown companies listed abroad can simultaneously list at home, after watching technology heavyweights Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) and Baidu Inc (百度) list on Wall Street.
The objectives of the plan include helping to develop China’s still relatively immature and volatile share markets while allowing domestic investors to invest in the country’s big tech champions.
Alibaba and Hong Kong-listed Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) have expressed an interest in the plan.
Xiaomi shipped 28 million smartphones worldwide from January to March, an 88-percent surge year-on-year.
That made the company fourth in the world, after Samsung Electronics Co, Apple Inc and China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為), International Data Corp data showed.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day