Kingsoft Office surges during STAR debut

Kingsoft Office Software Co, a Chinese software developer with over three decades of tech experience, jumped 175 percent on Monday, its first trading day on Shanghai’s SSE STAR Market.

Shares of the Zhuhai-based company closed at 126.35 yuan (US$18.05), after reaching an intra-day high over 140 yuan. In total, the company raised 4.5 billion yuan through an initial public offering, with shares priced at 45.86 yuan.

“Kingsoft’s WPS platform has walked a long road over 31 years. It’s a company filled with dreams and responsibilities,” said Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi and a shareholder of Kingsoft.

The IPO is expected to help Kingsoft research product updates, artificial intelligence, cloud and global development.

Kingsoft now has 330 million users globally, covering 220 countriescountries and regions. More than 500 million WPS files are created and edited every day on the WPS platform, said Ge Ke, CEO of Kingsoft.

With Kingsoft, 54 firms have listed on the SSE STAR Market since it debuted in June.

The sci-tech innovation board is designed to focus on companies in high-tech and strategic emerging sectors, with less strict listing criteria but higher requirements for information disclosure.