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We don't know exactly when the Xiaomi IPO date will be, but one thing is crystal clear.
When the Chinese smartphone maker does go public, Wall Street will gobble up shares of Xiaomi stock.
The ambitious company - just five years old - has already become the top-selling smartphone vendor in its home country. Last year Xiaomi Corp. moved into third place in the global smartphone market.
Every aspect of this company says it's ripe for an IPO, even though the company has said it wants to stay private for a while longer.
For one thing, it currently has the highest valuation - $46 billion - of any startup, according to The Wall Street Journal. Uber has the second-highest valuation at $41.2 billion.
Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, who invested in Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) back in 2009, thinks Xiaomi's valuation could hit $100 billion. Milner's DST Global has been investing in Xiaomi since 2012.
"I was attracted by the size of the opportunity ahead of them," Milner told Bloomberg in December. "I don't think there's any company that has reached $1 billion in revenue as fast as Xiaomi. In every conceivable benchmark, it's almost unprecedented in terms of its speed of growth."
It's also very likely that a Xiaomi IPO will take place in the United States, either on the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq.
Chinese tech companies generally prefer the U.S. market to Hong Kong because U.S. investors favor tech stock more so than Chinese investors. Chinese companies are also fond of multiple share classes, like Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG, GOOGL), which the Hong Kong exchange does not yet allow.
Last year alone, Momo Inc. (Nasdaq ADR: MOMO), JD.com Inc. (Nasdaq ADR: JD), Weibo Corp. (Nasdaq ADR: WB), and, of course, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) all had IPOs in the U.S.
The probable Xiaomi stock symbol is "MI," as the company uses the "Mi" moniker extensively in its branding.
Meanwhile, almost everything the company has done has served to whet an investor's appetite for the eventual Xiaomi IPO - take a look...
About the Author
David Zeiler, Associate Editor for Money Morning at Money Map Press, has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including 18 spent at The Baltimore Sun. He has worked as a writer, editor, and page designer at different times in his career. He's interviewed a number of well-known personalities - ranging from punk rock icon Joey Ramone to Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Over the course of his journalistic career, Dave has covered many diverse subjects. Since arriving at Money Morning in 2011, he has focused primarily on technology. He's an expert on both Apple and cryptocurrencies. He started writing about Apple for The Sun in the mid-1990s, and had an Apple blog on The Sun's web site from 2007-2009. Dave's been writing about Bitcoin since 2011 - long before most people had even heard of it. He even mined it for a short time.
Dave has a BA in English and Mass Communications from Loyola University Maryland.
Thanks for the report David on the next super mega star that may even perhaps eclipse Apple's unprecedented success. ( ?… Is it possible ?). The Chinese certainly know how to kick up a notch! Some one pinch me. Please keep the reports coming.
Mike from Indiana
Mike,
Not sure if Xiaomi will ever eclipse Apple, but it's clearly a rising star in the tech world. It will be a household name eventually.
Thanks for reading Money Morning!
– Dave Zeiler
I don't see an IPO that imminent. Shanghai or Hongkong would be where they list. The company uses a direct sales model that isn't competitive among us contract based phone models. Even if they sell their products at a lower price, unless they switch to the American standard of a payment plan attached to a contract, not many people will spend the upfront money.
Basically the US market is too small for them to care about. They know most people will not want their phones, and would prefer to focus on the Asian market. I see this being the case for at least another 2 years.