By Tang Guhan
China's tech giant Xiaomi plans to issue a Chinese Depository Receipt (CDR) at the Shanghai Stock Exchange on July 16 and go public at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange the day after, as reported by the China Securities Journal last Friday.
It was also reported by other media outlets that Xiaomi plans to raise 3 billion dollars' worth of funds, accounting for 30 percent of its overall IPO in the A-shares market through CDRs, and leave the rest for its IPO in Hong Kong.
Xiaomi would thus become the first tech giant in China to issue CDRs.
Related institutions have valued the company at a range between 65 billion and 70 billion dollars, according to people close to investment banks.
The valuations for Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and JD.com stand at USD 477 billion, HKD 4,100 billion, USD 87 billion and USD 67 billion respectively. It seems Xiaomi is likely to exceed JD.com to become the fourth largest tech stock in China following Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu.
Lei Jun, the CEO of Xiaomi, insisted on positioning Xiaomi as an internet giant rather than a smartphone manufacturer even though 70 percent of the company's overall revenue comes from its smartphone sales.
He added Xiaomi aimed at being an internet service provider which profits from advertisements and online games.
The operating income for Xiaomi increased by 67.5 percent year-on-year in 2017, according to its documents filed for its IPO application at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
The sales volume for Xiaomi's smartphones ranked fourth globally with an 87.8 percent growth rate during the first quarter of 2018, according to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC), while the global smartphone turnover dropped by 2.9 percent during the same period.
