Weibo shares fall on Hong Kong debut

The microblogging site’s primary listing is in New York, but it announced last month plans for a secondary listing in Hong Kong.

Trading commenced on Wednesday and the stock lost just over 7% during the session. In the US, the stock was off 4% in pre-market trading as at 1130 GMT.

Weibo raised $385m from its Hong Kong debut, which it will use to grow its user base, invest in research and development and seek out possible acquisitions.

It is the latest New York-listed Chinese firm to seek a listing closer to home. Chinese companies are coming under increased scrutiny in the US, in part a legacy of the heightened trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, while China is looking to curb the country’s tech sector.

Last week ride-hailing app Didi Global said it planned to delist from the New York Stock Exchange, just months after making its $4.4bn market debut, in favour of Hong Kong. Chinese regulators have claimed it illegally collected users’ personal data and have banned online stores from selling the app.

Weibo, which was launched in 2009, has around 570m monthly users, far more than Twitter’s 211m users per month. Twitter, along with a number of other US social media platforms, is blocked in China.