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It is believed that Xiaomi will reinvest the money it makes in the IPO into its overseas expansion initiatives
Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi has kicked off its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, and hopes to generate $6.1 billion.
The company will use proceeds from the IPO to fund its expansion into Europe, which has already started in earnest.
"Someone asked me if Xiaomi (will) only expand in developing countries? Last year we started to enter the European market and we realised we have a lot of ‘Mi fans’ in Europe," Lei Jun, Xiaomi’s co-founder and CEO, told members of the press.
The valuation of $6.1 billion is far below the $10 billion valuation that Xiaomi initially said it would seek, as protracted trade wars between China and the US weigh heavy on proceedings.
The US-China trade wars are also believed to be the reason that Xiaomi has shifted its area focus for overseas expansion away from the United States and towards Western Europe.
Xiaomi has recently announced a raft of deals with distributors in Europe, including Spain and the UK, where it is enjoying significant amounts of success in the mid-tier smartphone market.
According to data supplied by the IDC, Xiaomi is the world’s fourth biggest manufacturer of smartphone handsets, behind Samsung, Apple and Huawei.
