'Competing with TikTok' Kuaishou's 2nd Largest IPO Ever... Offering Price at 93 Hong Kong Dollars

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] The final offering price of Kuaishou, a Chinese video service platform, has been set at 93 Hong Kong dollars (approximately 13,220 KRW), according to reports by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and CNBC on the 24th (local time).

Kuaishou will begin trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange starting from the 5th of next month. Through this Hong Kong listing, Kuaishou is expected to raise up to 38.6 billion Hong Kong dollars (5 billion USD).

Kuaishou's IPO size is expected to be the second largest ever, following Alibaba Group Holdings, which was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in November 2019 with 13 billion USD. It surpasses the 3.9 billion USD raised by JD.com, a major Chinese e-commerce company listed in Hong Kong in June last year.

Kuaishou's corporate value was estimated at around 30 billion USD at the end of 2019. Tencent is the largest shareholder, holding approximately 22% of the shares.

Kuaishou plans to use the funds raised from this listing for operating expenses such as development costs. Foreign media predict that competition among the three companies?ByteDance's TikTok, Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), and Kuaishou?will intensify following Kuaishou's listing.

Founded in 2011, Kuaishou is a platform specialized in short video social media content ranging from 15 seconds to 1 minute, similar to TikTok. In terms of user numbers, it is the second largest in the world after ByteDance Group's Douyin.

Kuaishou's daily active users (DAU) were recorded at 302 million in the first half of last year. ByteDance Group's daily active users reach approximately 600 million.