Shein finally went public. The price tag, though, tells a story of a company that’s lost a lot of its shine since the pandemic-era shopping frenzy.
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The fast-fashion juggernaut completed its Hong Kong IPO on August 27, pricing shares at HK$48.56. The offering raised roughly $1.7B and valued the company at approximately $26.5B. That’s a far cry from the $98.2B valuation it commanded at its peak in 2022, representing a decline of more than 70%.
From $100B darling to discount debut
Shein’s road to going public has been anything but smooth. The company previously explored listings in both the US and the UK before abandoning those plans entirely. China’s securities regulator, the CSRC, finally approved the Hong Kong listing on July 10, and the stock is set to begin trading under the code 00625 on September 1.
The IPO book was fully covered. Cornerstone investors, the anchor buyers who commit before pricing, put up about $383M in shares. That group includes Boyu Capital and Tencent.
The pricing landed at a multiple of roughly 12 to 13 times 2025 earnings.
The numbers behind the skepticism
Revenue for 2025 came in at $41.8B, growing just 8% year-over-year. In Q1 2026, Shein posted a net loss of $99M. A year earlier in the same quarter, it had booked $395M in profit.
Temu, the shopping app from PDD Holdings, has been aggressively eating into Shein’s market share across its roughly 160 countries of operation. Both companies compete on a similar value proposition of ultra-cheap goods shipped directly from Chinese manufacturers.
The company is headquartered in Singapore but has its roots in China, a dual identity that has created friction with regulators and politicians in Western markets concerned about supply chain transparency and labor practices.
What this means for the market
The $26.5B valuation is roughly a quarter of what Shein was worth at its 2022 peak. Even compared to its more recent private market valuation of $64B from 2023 and early 2024, the IPO price represents a haircut of nearly 60%.
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