Sources close to Xiaomi’s senior executives are claiming that Xiaomi has decided to set its IPO for the second part of 2018 with the exact month still unknown, according to Pheonix News (in Chinese). The company is due to be listed in Hong Kong, sources said. Xiaomi’s founder Lei Jun expects the valuation will reach a whopping $200 billion and the target has been approved by an investment bank, the report states.
TechNode’s Chinese sister site has reached out to Xiaomi which has responded with “no comment.”
Xiaomi’s IPO is one of the most anticipated IPO’s in 2018 setting off wide speculation on the possible numbers. If the company’s valuation does reach $200 billion, it will be more than two times higher than Baidu’s current valuation which, according to NASDAQ, amounted to $85 billion at 3 pm Beijing time today.
The IPO of “China’s answer to Apple” has been a topic for some time. Back in 2016, Lei Jun stated that he doesn’t expect his company to be ready for the move before 2025. However, the conversation was reignited at the end of last year when Bloomberg reported that Xiaomi was targeting a valuation of at least $50 billion in IPO. The company’s last financing was in 2014 when it reached a $46 billion valuation making it the most valuable start-up in the world at the time.
The firm broke its annual revenue target by as much as 18 percent in 2017, topping the annual revenue goal of about $15 billion. Its net profit was estimated to be at least $1 billion while profit for 2018 is expected to reach about $2 billion.
