Shares in Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing company, gave up strong initial gains to close with a 1% rise in its US stock market debut Wednesday, as investors questioned the company’s long-term profit path and regulatory headwinds.
Didi opened at USD 16.65 on the New York Stock Exchange and closed at USD 14.14, up from the initial public offering price of USD 14 per share. Shares rose as high as USD 18.01. The closing price put its market cap at around USD 67.8 billion.
By comparison, US ride-hailing giants Uber Technologies and Lyft were valued at around USD 75 billion and USD 24 billion, respectively, on their IPO days. Uber stood at USD 93.81 billion on Wednesday, with Lyft having a USD 19.92 billion market cap.
Didi’s muted first-day reception followed a lackluster pre-IPO roadshow.
Representatives of the company, which is backed by SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund and Tencent Holdings, got a shock during their two-week premarketing campaign as they hoped to swing a USD 100 billion valuation similar to that of Uber, Nikkei Asia previously reported.
They met such strong resistance that the company settled on a valuation of up to USD 67 billion—just above the level set in a 2018 fundraising. Didi also recalibrated the fundraising target to USD 4 billion, less than half its initial goal, three people familiar with the transaction said.
Yet Didi’s IPO remains one of the biggest by a Chinese company in New York, after Alibaba Group Holding’s USD 25 billion fundraising in 2014.
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Didi, founded in 2012 by Cheng Wei and Jean Liu, operates in 15 countries and serves 493 million annual active users on its platform, according to a company filing. Cheng is now CEO, while Liu—daughter of Lenovo Group founder Liu Chuanzhi—serves as president.
Cheng owns a 6.5% stake in the company after the IPO, while Liu holds 1.6%. At the Wednesday closing price, their shares in Didi are worth USD 4.4 billion and USD 1.1 billion, respectively.
SoftBank Group is Didi’s top shareholder, with a 20.2% stake through its Vision Fund, following the IPO. The stake is now worth more than USD 13.7 billion based on Wednesday’s closing price, leaving the Japanese conglomerate at a modest gain given it has invested a total of USD 11 billion in the Chinese ride-hailing giant.
Uber, which holds a 12% stake after selling its Chinese operations to Didi, is the company’s second-largest shareholder. Tencent, the Chinese technology and entertainment giant, owns a 6.4% interest.
Didi has established a strong lead in the Chinese ride-hailing market after acquiring main rival Uber China in 2016. Its mobility technology platform boasts 377 million annual active users and 13 million annual active drivers in the country.
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Though Didi reported a USD 1.6 billion loss for 2020 owing to the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic, it has logged a turnaround of sorts this year. Investment returns helped the company post net income of USD 837 million for the first three months, despite a loss from operations of USD 1 billion.
But Didi’s long-term profit prospects still pose concerns as it invested heavily in international expansion and autonomous driving. The international business and other operations lost RMB 1 billion (USD 155 million) and RMB 8.1 billion, respectively, in the first three months of the year.
The company faces intense competition from the likes of Uber and Lyft in the global market, where Didi has invested billions in expansion. It launched food delivery services in Japan in April 2020 and now ranks as the second-largest ride-hailing platform in Latin America, the filing shows.
Didi also is embroiled in a regulatory crackdown on technology companies in China, which imposed a record fine of RMB 18.2 billion on Alibaba this year. In March, Didi was fined RMB 1.5 million for “improper pricing behaviors.”
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It’s republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.