Xiaomi logs $1 billion first-quarter loss but record overseas revenue ahead of IPO

By Sijia Jiang

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi booked a quarterly net loss of $1.1 billion, but also record overseas revenue and surging smartphone shipments ahead of its blockbuster initial public offering next month.

Expectations of a highly sought after IPO have grown after Xiaomi, founded only eight years ago, blew past its 100 billion yuan ($15.6 billion) sales target for 2017 with a couple of months to spare.

The Hong Kong IPO is expected to raise $10 billion and value Xiaomi at between $70 billion and $100 billion, sources have said. Stoking expectations, up to 30 percent of the offering is expected to be sold as Chinese depository receipts on the mainland, in what is expected to be the first-ever CDR offering.

In its first prospectus for the CDR sale posted on Monday, Xiaomi did not provide a year-ago quarterly profit figure, but compared the 7 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) loss for January-March to a net loss of 43.89 billion yuan for the whole of 2017.

Xiaomi, however, said that after adjusting for fair value changes of convertible redeemable preferred shares, it made a net profit of 1.04 billion yuan in the first quarter. That compares with 3.9 billion yuan profit for the whole of 2017.

Its smartphone shipments jumped 88 percent from the same quarter a year earlier thanks to strong growth overseas and at home, helping Xiaomi log revenue of 34 billion yuan for the period. That compares with 114.6 billion yuan for all of last year.

Revenue from overseas rose to a record high of 12.5 billion yuan in the quarter, with its phones topping the Indian market, it said in the filing.

Xiaomi did not reveal a fundraising target or the number of shares on offer in the filing.

The fund raising, which could be the largest listing globally in almost four years, comes as tech companies and investors look to capitalise on a bull run for the Hong Kong market, with the benchmark Hang Seng Index rising 19 percent over the past year.

($1 = 6.4048 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Sijia Jiang; Additional reporting by Miyoung Kim and Sayantani Ghosh in Singapore; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Edwina Gibbs)