Short-form video platform Kuaishou officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today (February 5), becoming the biggest IPO in the tech industry since Uber in 2019. Kuaishou’s listing also represents the second-largest IPO at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the last two years following Alibaba in November 2019.
On the first day of trading, Kuaishou’s stocks almost tripled, increasing 193% from the price of HK$115 ($14.83) to HK$338 ($43.60). The company, which raised $5.4 billion in its initial public offering, saw its valuation rocket to $160 billion. As a result, the net worth of its two founders, Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao, soared to $18.6 billion and $14.8 billion respectively.
The IPO has closed the gap between Kuaishou and its main competitor ByteDance, the founder of TikTok and Douyin. ByteDance which is expected to list some of its Chinese businesses in Hong Kong later this year was last valued at $180 billion.
The IPO shows the potential of short videos as a form of entertainment and marketing. As of September 30, 2020, Kuaishou had 305 million average daily active users who spent over 86 minutes on the platform and visited it more than 10 times a day. Kuaishou’s revenue from e-commerce in November 2020 was over five-fold that of the previous year, reaching 332.6 billion RMB. The sales of virtual gifts for livestreamers accounted for 62% of its total revenue.
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