China

Shein Worth Only $26 Billion in Stock Market Debut, Down From $100 Billion in 2022

co-written by newsrooms.ai31. August 2026, 09:47

It is the listing the fashion industry has been waiting on for years, and it has come in far smaller than expected. Shein has just wrapped up its initial public offering in Hong Kong, raising about $1.7 billion and landing at a market value of roughly $26 billion. Back in 2022, a private funding round valued the fast-fashion group at close to $100 billion. Around three quarters of that peak has since evaporated. Trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange starts on Tuesday.

Shares were priced at HK$48.56, near the middle of the marketed range. Cornerstone investors including Boyu Capital, Tiger Global, General Atlantic, Tencent, Greenwoods, Taikang Life and UBS Asset Management took roughly $383 million worth of stock. Even with those names on the register, demand stayed muted: margin-financed subscriptions covered the deal about 4.66 times, according to China Daily, while robotics company Mech-Mind drew 3,842 times cover in the same window.

From New York to London to Hong Kong

Shein originally planned to go public in the United States, then in London. Both attempts stalled amid regulatory and political resistance, including scrutiny of its supply chain and questions about forced labor in Xinjiang. Hong Kong was what remained, at a price the company would almost certainly have rejected three years ago. Trending Topics reported earlier on Shein’s plans for the Hong Kong IPO.

Tariffs Are Eating the Margin

The prospectus explains why the valuation shrank so sharply. Shein posted revenue of about $41.8 billion in 2025, up eight percent. Net profit fell from $3.37 billion to $2.06 billion over the same period, a drop of almost 39 percent, and the net margin slid from 8.7 to 4.9 percent. In the first quarter of 2026 the company slipped into the red: a net loss of $99 million, against a $395 million profit a year earlier, on essentially flat revenue of around $9 billion.

Trade policy is the main culprit. The United States scrapped the de minimis exemption for low-value shipments in May 2025, leaving Shein’s parcels exposed to import duties of between 10 and 87.5 percent. The European Union followed by removing its 150-euro threshold, and Brussels is weighing an additional two-euro fee on every imported parcel. A business model built on duty-free single shipments straight from Chinese warehouses is losing its structural cost advantage.

Competition is tightening at the same time. Temu attacks Shein in the United States and Europe with a similar playbook and has pulled level with Amazon in some markets.

Even $26 Billion May Be Rich

What stands out is that investors consider even this reduced valuation demanding. Shein trades at more than 15 times forward earnings. Temu parent PDD Holdings sits at 7.4 times, the Hang Seng Index at 10.7 times. Bloomberg Intelligence expects sales to rise just 3.4 percent to $44.3 billion next year, with net income of $1.7 billion.

Portfolio manager Gary Tan summed up the skepticism to Bloomberg: the valuation already prices in part of a growth comeback the company has yet to deliver. Analysts describe a repricing in which Shein moves from hyper-growth platform to global retailer with thin margins.

Roughly 80 percent of the proceeds are earmarked for technology and brand building, among them an AI-driven demand forecasting system and additional logistics hubs. Whether that revives the growth story will start showing up in the share price on Tuesday.

Sources: Bloomberg, Reuters via Investing.com, China Daily, CNBC