Kunlunxin starts STAR Market IPO guidance

Background

Kunlunxin is the chip unit associated with Baidu, and Baidu itself has been one of its main customers. That relationship is central to how the company's listing is being read: the share of revenue coming from outside the parent is the measure of whether the chip business can stand on its own. According to the company's own expectations, more than half of its 2025 revenue was to come from sales to external customers rather than to Baidu itself ^[1].

In the Chinese market, a company that wants to list on the STAR Market — the Shanghai exchange board created for science and technology companies — first goes through a counselling, or guidance, stage. During this period the company works with a sponsoring securities firm to put its corporate governance, finances and disclosure practices in order before a formal application is accepted for review. Starting guidance is therefore an early, procedural step rather than a completed listing, but it is the point at which a company's intention becomes public.

What happened

In May 2026, Kunlunxin began IPO guidance for the STAR Market ^[1]. The company is pursuing an A-share listing and a Hong Kong listing in parallel, rather than dropping the Hong Kong plan in favour of the mainland one ^[1]. Running both tracks at once means the company keeps two options open: a mainland listing that puts it in front of domestic investors and a Hong Kong listing that gives it access to international capital.

The numbers behind the filing

Kunlunxin reported a net loss of about 200 million yuan on revenue of about 2 billion yuan in 2024 ^[1]. Revenue was expected to grow above 3.5 billion yuan in 2025, with the company reaching break-even ^[1].

Taken together, those two figures describe a business that is scaling quickly while still working through the losses typical of chip development. A loss of roughly 200 million yuan against 2 billion yuan of revenue is a modest deficit relative to the size of the business; the expectation of break-even alongside revenue growth of well over half in a single year implies that the losses were narrowing as volumes rose. The revenue mix matters as much as the total: if more than half of 2025 revenue comes from external customers, the business is no longer simply an internal supplier to its parent, and outside buyers — server makers, data centre operators and other customers — become the basis on which the listing is judged ^[1].

Why it matters

Chinese internet companies have built substantial in-house chip teams, but turning those teams into independent listed companies is a newer step. Securities Times noted that the listing would give other Chinese internet companies a template for spinning off in-house chip units ^[1]. A successful offering would show how such a unit can be separated from its parent, priced by public markets, and held to the disclosure standards of a listed company — including the requirement to show how much of its business comes from outside the parent group. A difficult offering would send the opposite signal, and could slow similar spin-offs elsewhere.

The parallel A-share and Hong Kong process also makes the deal a test of how chip companies are valued in two different markets at once ^[1]. For readers following the sector, the things to watch are the final revenue split between Baidu and external customers, whether break-even is actually reached, and whether the dual listing proceeds on both tracks or settles on one.