China chipmaker MetaX jumps 755% after wildly oversubscribed IPO
Chinese IPOs have been strong this year, averaging a 250% pop on the first trading day
[SHANGHAI] MetaX Integrated Circuits Shanghai soared in its first day of trading on Wednesday (Dec 17), the latest outsized debut by a Chinese chipmaker after similar gains by Moore Threads Technology earlier this month.
MetaX jumped as much as 755 per cent in Shanghai, after raising US$585.8 million in an initial public offering (IPO). The gains put the stock on track to be the top performing debut for IPOs between US$500 million and US$1 billion in China over the past decade.
Like Moore Threads, MetaX makes graphics processing units for artificial intelligence (AI) developers, a red-hot industry that’s growing at a rapid clip as consumers and businesses adopt AI services. The stock will likely draw investors who were not lucky enough to get an allotment in the notoriously tough IPO lottery.
Its shares were 2,986 times oversubscribed on the retail portion, drawing even higher demand than Moore Threads, whose shares were oversubscribed by 2,750 times.
Investors are betting on national champions that could emerge as viable local competitors to global leader Nvidia, whose most advanced chips are blocked by the US from being sold to China. Moore Threads jumped more than sixfold over eight sessions since its debut, with the stock quintupling on the first trading day alone.
Priced at 104.66 yuan a share in its IPO, the jump took MetaX’s market capitalisation to more than 300 billion yuan. That compares with Moore Threads’ current 337 billion yuan valuation. MetaX’s price-to-sales ratio stands at 56.4, compared with an average of 127.4 for peers such as Cambricon Technologies and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), according to the company’s exchange filing.
“The theme of domestic substitution will continue to drive strong growth in these firms and there is plenty of potential for a few firms at one trillion yuan market cap in size,” said Zhang Kexing, partner at Beijing Gelei Asset Management Center Limited Partnership.
The debut adds to a busy day for stock market listings in Asia on Wednesday. Apart from MetaX, Hong Kong’s largest licensed cryptocurrency exchange HashKey Holdings, Japan’s SBI Shinsei Bank, and Indonesia’s digital banking firm Super Bank Indonesia all began trading in their respective markets. Among them, HashKey was the only one to fall below its IPO price.
MetaX can trace its roots to AMD, with three key members of its founding team having previously worked for the US chipmaker. Those include chairman and chief executive officer Chen Weiliang.
The Chinese company designs and sells GPUs that are used for AI workloads as well as graphics rendering in gaming and other visualisation applications. In 2024, its AI-focused Xiyun C500 series, which the company claimed was comparable to Nvidia’s A100, accounted for nearly 98 per cent of total revenue. The newer C588 generation has significantly narrowed the performance gap with Nvidia’s H100, MetaX says.
MetaX captured about 1 per cent of China’s AI chip market last year, the company said in its prospectus, citing data from an industry consultancy.
Chinese IPOs have been strong this year, averaging a 250 per cent pop on the first trading day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That has partially been due to Chinese authorities keeping a lid on issuances to prevent sapping liquidity in the broader market.
Meanwhile, softer risk appetite in the secondary market and year-end profit-taking have also boosted interest in new offerings, which are viewed as a reliable way to capture gains in the first few days of trading. Radio frequency chipmaker Beijing Onmicro Electronics more than doubled on its debut on Tuesday, following an IPO that was 2,899 times oversubscribed.
Among other chipmakers to potentially list in China are ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies. The two firms may each seek a valuation of 200 billion yuan to 300 billion yuan.
In Hong Kong, a flurry of companies in the AI space is also lining up for market debuts. MiniMax and Zhipu, both backed by Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings and others, are aiming to complete their IPOs as soon as January.
“MetaX’s listing may potentially spearhead a rally in tech stocks and create more excitement around new and secondary listings,” said Xu Dawei, a fund manager at Jintong Private Fund Management in Beijing. BLOOMBERG
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