Android original equipment manufacturer Xiaomi lost approximately $1.09 billion over the first quarter of the year, the company disclosed Monday as part of a regulatory filing submitted ahead of its initial public offering. The Beijing-based startup says it actually made over $1 billion if not accounting for one-off items. Xiaomi is still growing at a rapid pace, with its overall revenues outpacing its losses, being indicative of a healthy enough financial state for a major IPO. Its public listing is likely to become the largest tech float since Alibaba’s stock market debut in 2014, with Xiaomi being expected to hit a valuation of up to $80 billion and raise some $10 billion in cash.
Xiaomi’s smartphone shipments are up 88-percent year-over-year, primarily due to its massive foreign growth, with India remaining its largest market. Despite entering the South Asian country just over three years ago, Xiaomi is already challenging Samsung for the title of the largest local handset OEM and some industry trackers estimate it already surpassed the South Korean tech giant by both shipments and sales, though a number of others like Gartner are claiming the opposite. Xiaomi’s IPO is taking place in Hong Kong, though close to a third of its shares are also expected to be offered in the form of depository receipts in mainland China, according to previous reports. A dual-listing strategy is seen as a safer bet for the firm that’s targeting a large valuation based solely on growth metrics.
Xiaomi already signaled its IPO won’t alter its general business strategy, with the company continuing to prioritize growth over profits, particularly in the hardware segment where it specifically vowed to never exceed a five-percent profit margin or find a way to return any excess profits to consumers as a gesture of goodwill. That pledge hasn’t encompassed its more profitable software unit which handles advertising and mobile services.