Kuaishou’s Hong Kong Debut Values TikTok Rival at More Than AIA, JD.Com
Dou Shicong
DATE:  Feb 05 2021
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
Kuaishou’s Hong Kong Debut Values TikTok Rival at More Than AIA, JD.Com Kuaishou’s Hong Kong Debut Values TikTok Rival at More Than AIA, JD.Com

Yicai Global) Feb. 5 -- Kuaishou Technology jumped past life insurer AIA Group and e-commerce titan JD.Com to become the Hong Kong stock exchange’s eighth-most valuable company as the shares of TikTok’s main competitor soared on their first day of trading.

Kuaishou [HKG: 1024] ended 161 percent higher at HKD300 (USD38.70), giving it a market capitalization of HKD1.23 trillion (USD159 billion). The stock earlier tripled in value from its offering price of HKD115. AIA [HKG: 1299] is the bourse’s ninth-most valuable company at HKD1.21 trillion, followed by JD.Com [HKG: 9618], whose secondary listing was last June, at HKD1.16 trillion.

Kuaishou’s initial public offering was 1,200 times oversubscribed as 1.4 million investors tried to subscribe to 11 billion shares, figures that set new records for a Hong Kong share sale, the Beijing-based company said yesterday. In Hong Kong’s gray market trading yesterday, it more than tripled to break through HKD400 a share.

Founded in 2011, Kuaishou was originally a video-editing application, but it transformed into a social media platform in 2013. It ranked second among the world’s short-video platforms between last January and September, according to its IPO prospectus.

ByteDance Technology's Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, still leads the market as it had 600 million daily active users as of Sept. 30. ByteDance plans to package some of its businesses, including Douyin, for a listing in Hong Kong, Bloomberg News reported last month.

Kuaishou’s float has made Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao, two of its co-founders, instant billionaires. Su had 427 million shares before the listing and Cheng owned 339 million, resulting in stakes of 12.6 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Their individual fortunes have passed HKD100 billion (USD12.9 billion). 

Some familiar internet players have also benefited. Chinese social media giant Tencent Holdings is Kuaishou’s largest shareholder with 21.6 percent. 

The app is not yet profitable. In the first 11 months of last year, Kuaishou made a loss of CNY9.4 billion (USD1.5 billion) while revenue was CNY52.5 billion (USD8.1 billion), according to its prospectus. The number of daily active users reached 260 million as of Nov. 30.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi

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Keywords:   Kuaishou,Hong Kong,IPO,TikTok