Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.

Coming up on today’s program

• China's largest bubble tea chain Mixue soared 43% on Hong Kong trading debut;
• China's manufacturing PMI rises to 50.2 in February.

Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours

Shares of China's largest bubble tea and drinks chain Mixue Group jumped over 40 percent by midday on their first day of trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today after the firm raised HKD3.46 billion in an initial public offering.

The shares started trading at HKD262 each and closed 43 percent higher at HKD290, with a market cap nearing HKD110 billion.

Retail investors subscribed for over 5,000 times more shares than were on offer in that tranche, according to Mixue's filings, making it one of Hong Kong's most popular ever IPOs. Investors applied for a record HKD1.8 trillion worth of margin loans to buy Mixue stock during the book-building process.

The debut is a positive start for Mixue compared to its rival Guming whose shares slumped 10 percent on their first trading day in Hong Kong on February 12.

Mixue is often seen as China's largest chain of iced drinks, milk tea, and ice cream. However, it operates more like a raw-material supplier than a traditional beverage brand.

Founded in 1997 as a small ice shop in Zhengzhou, Henan province, Mixue has grown into a franchise giant with over 45,000 stores globally by September 2024, surpassing Starbucks' 40,576 stores worldwide.

Unlike Starbucks, which operates 53 percent of its stores directly, Mixue relies heavily on franchising, with more than 99 percent of its stores run by franchisees.

Mixue's prospectus showed sales of goods and equipment accounted for 97.6 percent of Mixue's total revenue in the first nine months of 2024, while franchise fees contributed a mere 2.4 percent. 

• China's Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to 50.2 in February, up 1.1 percentage points from January, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday. The NBS said that the resumption of work and production across enterprises following the Spring Festival holiday in February has revitalized business operations, improving economic vitality. The country's non-manufacturing PMI in February stood at 50.4, an increase of 0.2 percentage point from the previous month.

Greater Bay Area, Greater future

• Forty-one companies from the Chinese mainland have filed to go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the first two months of this year, up about three times from a year earlier, due to tightening domestic regulations on initial public offerings and more supporting policies. Twelve of the 41 companies applying to list in Hong Kong are listed on the mainland, according to the latest data from Wind Information.
• Shenzhen released yesterday three new work plans to create a superior business environment that is market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized. As per the plans, the city will further expand its high-level opening up by offering more opportunities for foreign investors to engage in the telecommunications, internet, education, healthcare, big data, and AI sectors, aiming to achieve an actual use of more than 50 billion yuan of foreign investment this year. The city will enhance services and support for foreign-invested enterprises, streamline registration and establishment procedures for those enterprises, and provide them with the latest preferential policies.

Next on industry and company news

• Sales of Chinese electric vehicles rose last month as XPeng led the charge with a more than fivefold increase in sales. XPeng delivered 30,500 vehicles in the month, topping the 30,000 mark for a fourth consecutive month. BYD sold 322,846 cars, up 164 percent from the same period a year ago while Nio's sales rose 62 percent to 13,192, bringing total sales since its launch to 698,600 vehicles. Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology delivered 25,287 cars, up 285 percent. Zeekr sold 14,039 cars, up 87 percent, Li Auto delivered 26,263 cars, up 29.7 percent and Xiaomi sold more than 20,000 SU7 electric sedans in the month. 
• Honor unveiled its Alpha strategy, which will transform the smartphone maker into an AI-centric firm, newly-appointed CEO James Li said at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona 2025. Honor will spend USD10 billion over the next five years to team up with global partners to build an AI terminal ecosystem, he added.
• In a groundbreaking move for industrial automation, UBTECH has successfully executed the world's first collaborative practical training program for humanoid robots at ZEEKR's state-of-the-art 5G-Intelligent Factory. This initiative represents a key advancement in developing a general-purpose Swarm Intelligence system for humanoid robots, marking a major leap from single-agent autonomy to swarm intelligence (SI), the Shenzhen-based company said in a press release today.
• The theoretical cost-profit ratio for DeepSeek's V3 and R1 models reached 545 percent based on data from Feb. 28, according to the first cost and revenue data the Chinese AI startup released on March 1. The theoretical daily profit of V3 and R1 is 3.5 million yuan but the firm’s actual revenue is significantly lower, DeepSeek warned.
• Firm orders for Xiaomi's new SU7 Ultra have reached 19,000 units, while locked-in one topped 10,000 units, exceeding the Chinese tech giant's expectations and completing this year's tasks ahead of schedule, Chairman Lei Jun said on Weibo yesterday. Meanwhile, Li Auto is scheduled to release its first pure electric SUV in July, the Chinese NEV maker said today. The i8, which CEO Li Xiang defined as a travel version of the Tesla's Model X, is expected to debut around the Shanghai Auto Show next month.
• Chinese AI startup Zhipu recently raised over 1 billion yuan in strategic financing, with government-backed Hangzhou Urban Investment Industry Fund among investors. The proceeds will support innovation and ecosystem development for Zhipu’s GLM model.

Switching gears to financial news

• China's central bank and four other regulators discussed financial measures to boost private firms’ development during a meeting on Feb. 28. The PBOC will guide financial institutions to increase investment in the private economy and adopt an “appropriately loose” monetary policy to maintain ample market liquidity, Governor Pan Gongsheng said.
• Shanghai Futures Exchange will expand the range of tradable products for QFII and RQFII to include stainless steel, fuel oil, pulp futures, and silver and rebar options contracts from tomorrow, after having got approval from China's securities regulator.

Wrapping up with a quick look at the stock market

• Chinese stocks closed mixed on Monday. The benchmark Shanghai Composite edged down 0.1 percent while the Shenzhen Component added 0.4 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 0.3 percent while the TECH index slipped 0.6 percent.

Executive Editor: Sonia YU

Editor: LI Yanxia

Host: Stephanie LI

Writer: Stephanie LI

Sound Editor: Stephanie LI

Graphic Designer: ZHENG Wenjing, LIAO Yuanni

Produced by 21st Century Business Herald Dept. of Overseas News.

Presented by SFC