On September 24, 2024, Qiniu Limited (referred to as "Qiniu Cloud"), a smart technology company from Shanghai, disclosed its prospectus after its hearing at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange or listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It has submitted three times on June 29, 2023, March 18, 2024, and September 22, 2024, with Shenwan Hongyuan Hong Kong and Bocom International as joint sponsors.
Qiniu Limited received a notice from the China Securities Regulatory Commission on June 17, 2024, regarding its overseas issuance and listing, planning to issue no more than about 0.235 billion shares of overseas ordinary shares and list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Qiniu Limited, previously applied to list on the USA nasdaq in 2021, but voluntarily withdrew the US listing application in September 2022.
Qiniu Limited prospectus link:
https://www1.hkexnews.hk/app/sehk/2024/106794/documents/sehk24092200023_c.pdf
Main Business
Established in 2011, Qiniu Limited, as one of china's earliest providers of audio and video cloud computing services, is committed to becoming a global leading one-stop intelligent audio and video service provider. The company mainly provides audio and video paas services (MPaaS), application platform as a service (APaaS), and is one of the few companies in china with comprehensive and high-performance MPaaS products, as well as technical capabilities that cover various aspects of the audio and video business.
According to iResearch, based on the 2023 revenue, Qiniu Limited is the third-largest audio and video paas service provider in china with a market share of 5.8%; based on the 2023 APaaS revenue, Qiniu Limited is also the second-largest audio and video APaaS service provider in china with a market share of 14.1%.
According to iResearch, Qiniu Limited is one of the five major participants in the audio and video paas industry with comprehensive AI capabilities. The company provides a range of AI services, including smart vision, smart voice, smart editing, industry algorithms, content security, and business security. AI technology has been widely deployed to develop existing MPaaS products and APaaS solutions under audio and video functions, and various AI technologies have been applied in providing audio and video services.
As of March 31, 2024, Qiniu Cloud has over 1.5 million registered users, most of whom are developers or developer teams from various enterprises. In the first three months of 2024, there were nearly 0.0651 million paying customers of Qiniu Cloud.
The main products and services of Qiniu Cloud include:
MPaaS product, a series of audio and video solutions, including the proprietary content delivery network (QCDN) for accelerated content delivery, the object storage platform (Kodo) for storing content, interactive live streaming products for real-time streaming of audio and video content, and the Dora smart media data analytics platform, mainly serving customers with strong development capabilities and flexibility needs. In the first three months of 2024, Qiniu Cloud's MPaaS platform provided over 4.6 billion minutes of audio and video playback per day. As of March 31, 2024, the data storage scale of Qiniu Cloud's MPaaS platform is approximately 15EB (1EB≈1 billionGB), with a total of 494.7 billion stored files, placing it in a leading position in the industry.
APaaS solution, providing scenario-specific audio and video solutions based on the company's MPaaS capabilities and leveraging the company's low-code platform. Revenue comes from five application scenarios: social entertainment, video marketing, video interconnection, smart new media, and metaverse. The company launched APaaS in 2021, with the number of customers increasing from 1,319 in 2021 to 2,597 in 2023.
Others, as a supplement to the MPaaS and APaaS solutions, the company also provides other reliable cloud services to customers, mainly including DPaaS, QVM, and internet datacenter hosting services.
Shareholder Structure
The prospectus shows that in the shareholder structure of Qiniu Cloud before going public,
Mr. Xu Shiwei holds 17.96% through Dream Galaxy.
Mr. Lu Guihua holds 5.88% of Dustland shares;
Taobao China holds 17.69% of shares;
Yunfeng Fund holds 12.44% through Magic Logistics;
Walden China holds 7.97% through MPCs;
China State-Owned Enterprise Structure Adjustment Fund holds 7.32% through Yonglu;
Qiming Fund holds 0.18%, 5.62%, 1.03% through Qiming MD, Qiming Venture, and Qiming Annex respectively, totaling 6.83% shares;
CBC controlled by Tian Suning holds 4.13%;
FG Venture holds 2.04% shares;
Golden Valley, with a 0.26% stake;
ChinaAMC Fund, holding a 3.83% stake through Harvest Yuanxiang;
Shanghai Zhangjiang, holding a 2.55% stake;
Shanghai Zhangjiang Kechou, holding a 1.53% stake;
Telstra Ventures, holding a 1.53% stake;
Shanghai Shentai, holding a 1.71% stake;
BOCOM International Asset Management, holding a 4.19% stake;
BOCOM Fund, holding a 0.67% stake;
Jumbo Sheen holds a 1.46% stake.
Board of directors and executives
The board of directors of Qiniu Cloud consists of 6 directors, including:
2 executive directors: Mr. Xu Shiwei (Chairman of the Board of Directors), Ms. Chen Yiling (Chief Operating Officer);
1 non-executive director: Mr. Lv Guihua;
3 independent non-executive directors: Mr. Wei Shaojun, Mr. Zhou Zheng, Dr. Shi Qing.
In addition to the executive directors, the senior management includes Chief Financial Officer Mr. Han Bin, Finance Director and Co-Secretary Mr. Zhang Yuanhao, HR Director Mr. Li Lina, and Vice President of Technology Mr. Jiang Wenlong.
Corporate Performance
The prospectus shows that in the past years 2021, 2022, 2023, and the first three months of 2024, Qiniu Cloud's revenue was RMB 1.471 billion, 1.147 billion, 1.334 billion, and 3.42 billion respectively, with net losses of RMB 0.22 billion, 0.213 billion, 0.324 billion, and 1.48 billion during the corresponding periods, and adjusted net losses of RMB 0.106 billion, 0.119 billion, 0.116 billion, and 0.24 billion respectively.
Intermediary Team
The intermediary team for Qiniu Cloud's IPO mainly includes: Swhyhk, Bocom Intl as its joint sponsors and overall coordinators; Huatai International as its overall coordinator; Ernst & Young as its auditor; King & Wood Mallesons, Jiayuan as its company's Chinese lawyers, company's Hong Kong lawyers; Jingtian & Gongcheng, Jingtian & Gongcheng (Hong Kong) as its brokerage Chinese lawyers, brokerage Hong Kong lawyers; iResearch as its independent industry advisor.
