Kuaishou plans for HK listing

Chinese short-video platform Kuaishou filed a preliminary prospectus for its listing of shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Thursday night.

According to the prospectus filed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, the total revenue of Kuaishou increased from 8.3 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) in 2017 to 39.1 billion yuan in 2019. The figure reached 25.3 billion yuan in the first half of this year, up 48 percent on a yearly basis.

The company monetizes primarily through the sale of virtual items, provision of various forms of online marketing services, and commissions from e-commerce sales on the platform. It is actively developing additional monetization opportunities to diversify revenue streams through online games, online knowledge-sharing and other products and services.

The company said the revenue generated from livestreaming accounts for a majority of its revenues and such revenue is heavily dependent on the number of paying users. Its revenue generated from livestreaming increased from 7.9 billion yuan in 2017 to 31.4 billion yuan in 2019.

Founded in 2011 as a tool for users to create and share animated images known as GIFs, which are in essence the earliest form of short videos, Kuaishou has become the first mover in China’s short-video industry to enable users to create, upload and view short videos on mobile devices, according to market consultancy iResearch.

In addition, there were 302 million average daily active users and 776 million average monthly active users of the Kuaishou app and mini program in China in the six months ending on June 30.