Shein prepares for a stock market debut far from its best days

BarcelonaThe fast fashion giant Shein is preparing for one of the most anticipated stock market debuts, although it is doing so far from its best days. After frustrated attempts to land on the London and New York stock exchanges – mainly due to doubts from Beijing regulators – the Singapore-based Chinese company will begin trading this Tuesday on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

The company announced this Monday the initial share price, set at 48.56 Hong Kong dollars (5.35 euros). In total, the company will put up to 280 million shares into circulation, thus expecting to raise close to 1.5 billion euros and a market valuation of just over 23 billion euros.

This amount is far from the peaks recorded in 2022, when Shein reached a valuation of 98.2 billion dollars (almost 85 billion euros) after completing one of its funding rounds. The difference between the value from four years ago and the current one would be 73%.

Red numbers

The Hong Kong debut comes at a difficult time for the company, which experienced its expansion coinciding with the economic recovery after the covid-19 crisis. During the first quarter of this 2026, the Asian fast fashion giant registered losses of 99 million dollars (about 85 million euros). In turn, revenues barely increased year-on-year during the first three months of the year. Between January and March, the group's turnover reached 9,025 million dollars (7,750 million euros), barely 1% more than last year.

A large part of this slowdown is explained by the regulatory pressure applied by both the United States and the European Union, its two main markets, which together represent about 60% of its revenue.

Last year, Washington eliminated the tariff exemption for imports under $800. In fact, Shein's revenue to the North American giant has fallen by 14% during the first quarter. Along similar lines, Brussels launched this summer the new three-euro tax on low-cost packages from countries outside the EU bloc.

Rising costs

With its stock market debut, Shein also seeks to obtain more financing to cope with the increasing costs of its logistics and to carry out investments that allow it to gain competitiveness. Other companies like Temu are direct competitors, and giants like Inditex are also present in the same market.

Despite everything, the Hong Kong-based group remains on the podium of the fast fashion sector globally, with a share of 1.9%. According to data from the Chinese consultancy CIC, collected by Europa Press, only Nike, with 3%, and Inditex, with 2.5%, appear ahead of it.