Xiaomi’s initial public offering was pitched as the first in a wave of stock market debuts by Chinese tech giants. It didn’t go well — but there are reasons to think that other companies following it could fare better.
小米公司的首次公开募股被视为中国科技巨头上市浪潮中的先锋。它进行得并不顺利——但有理由认为随后而来的其他公司可能会做得更好。
Expectations for Xiaomi were high when it filed to go public in May. News reports said that the smartphone-and-gadget company was seeking a valuation of up to $100 billion. Yet that dream appeared to be a fantasy: When share trading ended Monday, its market capitalization was about $47.8 billion.
5月份小米申请上市时,人们对它的期望很高。新闻报道说,这家智能手机和小设备公司追求高达1000亿美元的估值。然而,这个梦想似乎成了白日梦:当股票交易于周一收盘时,其市值约为478亿美元。
So, why did it miss the mark?
那么,为什么它会遭到这样的失败?
Xiaomi pitched itself to investors as more than a producer of commodity electronics. (Its hardware division achieved a margin of just 8.8 percent last year.) Instead, the company said it was pushing further into internet services, like online music and video, from which it generated a 60 percent margin in 2017.
小米在投资者面前给自己的定位不仅仅是电子产品生产商(其硬件部门去年的利润率仅为8.8%)。相反,该公司表示,它正在进一步参与互联网服务,如在线音乐和视频,从而在2017年产生了60%的利润率。
But according to the company’s prospectus, those internet services accounted for just 8.6 percent of its revenue last year. Smartphones represented 70.3 percent of the total. Investors don’t appear to believe that Xiaomi has yet made the leap from hardware company to internet giant.
但根据该公司的招股说明书,去年这些互联网服务仅占其收入的8.6%。智能手机占总收入的70.3%。投资者似乎并不认为小米已从硬件公司跃升为互联网巨头。
(One factor that probably wasn’t responsible for Xiaomi’s woes: the trade war between the United States and China. The company’s biggest markets are India and China.)
(美中之间的贸易战可能不是导致小米陷入困境的因素:公司最大的市场是印度和中国。)
Analysts have speculated that this I.P.O. may pose problems for other Chinese tech titans’ plans to go public. But that may not be the case. Here is DealBook’s look at why the forthcoming market debuts of other Chinese technology companies could play out more smoothly.
分析师推测,这次首次公开募股可能会给其他中国科技巨头的上市计划带来问题。但情况可能并非如此。下面是交易录(DealBook)的分析,为什么其他中国科技公司即将到来的上市可能会进展得更顺利。
Ant Financial
蚂蚁金服
Once the financial arm of the Alibaba Group, the company is now a full-fledged behemoth in its own right. It operates Alipay, China’s most dominant mobile payment app, and Yu’e Bao, a giant money-market fund, cementing its centrality in its country’s internet ecosystem.
作为阿里巴巴集团的金融机构,该公司现在已经成为一个成熟的大企业。它运营着中国最重要的移动支付应用支付宝和巨大的货币市场基金余额宝,从而巩固了它在中国互联网生态系统中的核心地位。
Reasons to be confident: Ant Financial offers profitable internet services, but, unlike Xiaomi, they make up the vast majority of its business. Last month, it raised $14 billion in what was the biggest-ever fund-raising round by a private company, drawing upon investors like the investment firm Warburg Pincus and the sovereign wealth fund Temasek.
有信心的理由:蚂蚁金服提供盈利的互联网服务,但与小米不同,它们构成了该公司的绝大部分业务。上个月,该公司筹集了140亿美元,这是私资公司有史以来规模最大的融资活动,吸引了华平投资集团(Warburg Pincus)和主权财富基金淡马锡(Temasek)等投资公司。
Reasons to be cautious: Ant Financial faces heavy regulatory scrutiny from Beijing, which has tightened its leash on the Chinese financial industry. And Tencent’s WeChat Pay is fighting hard to become a more competitive rival.
谨慎的理由:蚂蚁金服面临来自北京的严格监管审查,北京已经收紧了对中国金融业的控制。而腾讯的微信支付正在努力成为更有竞争力的对手。
Tencent Music Entertainment
腾讯音乐娱乐集团
Tencent’s music arm is a significant part of its parent company’s empire. And it already has a lock on Chinese music listeners’ ears: The business controls more than 70 percent of that country’s market for music streaming, according to analysts at Citigroup.
腾讯的音乐部门是其母公司帝国的重要组成部分。花旗集团(Citigroup)分析师称,它已锁定了中国音乐听众的耳朵:该公司控制着中国音乐流媒体市场的70%以上。
Reasons to be confident: Again, Tencent Music actually is a fast-growing internet company. It has about 700 million monthly users, with news reports estimating that 15 million of those pay for the service.
有信心的理由:腾讯音乐实际上是一家快速发展的互联网公司。它每月有大约7亿用户,新闻报道估计,有1500万用户为服务支付费用。
Reasons to be cautious: By comparison, Spotify, its closest counterpart, has 170 million monthly users, but 75 million of whom pay. Tencent Music will need to convince investors that more people are willing to pay for its services.
谨慎的理由:相比之下,与它最接近的对手Spotify每月有1.7亿用户,但有7500万人为之付费。腾讯音乐需要让投资者相信,会有更多人愿意为其服务付费。
Meituan-Dianping
美团点评
The company, which was founded in 2010, offers food delivery, Groupon-like discounts and more. It’s now one of China’s most valuable tech start-ups, with a valuation of roughly $30 billion.
该公司成立于2010年,提供食品配送和类似Groupon的折扣等服务。它现在是中国最有价值的科技初创企业之一,估值约为300亿美元。
Reasons to be confident: Meituan-Dianping is still growing fast, having doubled its revenue last year to 33.9 billion yuan, or $5.1 billion. Tencent is one of its investors.
有信心的理由:美团点评仍在快速增长,去年的收入翻了一番,达到339亿元人民币。腾讯是其投资者之一。
Reasons to be cautious? It’s worth noting that the company’s losses nearly tripled last year from the prior year, to $2.9 billion. And while it has a lead over rival offerings from Alibaba, it is unclear how long that will last.
谨慎的理由:值得注意的是,该公司去年的亏损几乎是去年的三倍,达到29亿美元。虽然它领先于其阿里巴巴旗下的竞争对手,目前还不清楚这能持续多久。