IPO Analysis | From Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd. (688036.SH) Passing the "A+H" Listing Hearing, a Deep Dive into the "King of African Phones" Secondary Listing and Breakthrough

Title context: IPO Analysis | From Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd. (688036.SH) Passing the "A+H" Listing Hearing, a Deep Dive into the "King of African Phones" Secondary Listing and Breakthrough Text: As one of the few consumer electronics giants in China with overseas markets as its base, Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd. (688036.SH), crowned the "King of African Phones," has knocked on the door of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange twice after seven years listed on the STAR Market, passing its listing hearing in late September and coming within a hair's breadth of achieving an "A+H" dual listing. By 2025 sales volume, Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd. ranks first in global emerging markets with a 20.0% market share, and in Africa its share reaches as high as 53.1%, exceeding the combined total of all other competitors. As a wave of consumer electronics price increases sweeps in, this company that rose to prominence through hardware going overseas is striving to shed the inherent label of a hardware manufacturer and move closer to becoming an intelligent ecosystem service provider for emerging markets. Performance Fluctuations: The "Ice and Fire" of Rising Prices and Shrinking Volume In Africa, one out of every two phones sold comes from a Chinese company. This company, named Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd., firmly holds the title of "King of African Phones" through its three brands: TECNO, Infinix, and itel. According to Frost & Sullivan data, in 2025 Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd. ranked third in the global phone market by sales volume, with approximately 169 million units sold and an 11.8% market share; it ranked eighth by revenue, with approximately US$8 billion in revenue and a 1.7% share. In emerging markets, the company ranks first by phone sales volume with a 20.0% share; in the African market, it ranks first by sales volume with a 53.1% share. The prospectus shows that Transsion's products cover a complete lineup from low-priced feature phones to mid-to-high-end smartphones. Relying on deep localization capabilities to take root in Africa while continuously penetrating vast emerging markets such as South Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, it now sells to more than 100 countries and regions worldwide, with its overseas footprint already achieving scale. Notably, in response to the special usage environments of emerging markets, Transsion adapts its products at the level of detailsupporting multi-SIM multi-standby, resistance to high-temperature and humid environments, and optimized portrait shooting algorithms for darker skin tonesearning user trust through localized innovation and helping Transsion firmly defend regional market share over the long term. The post-hearing information pack shows that from 2023 to 2025, Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd. achieved revenues of RMB 62.295 billion, RMB 68.715 billion, and RMB 65.591 billion, respectively. Revenue for the first four months of 2026 was RMB 23.290 billion, an increase of approximately 30.1% from RMB 17.908 billion in the same period last year. In terms of revenue structure, in 2025 its phone business revenue was RMB 58.448 billion, accounting for 89.1% of total revenue, of which smartphone revenue was RMB 54.821 billion; IoT products and other revenue was RMB 6.202 billion, with its share rising to 9.5%, and mobile internet service revenue was RMB 942 million. In the first four months of 2026, IoT products and other revenue increased to RMB 2.721 billion, accounting for 11.7%. Within 2025 phone revenue, TECNO, Infinix, and itel accounted for 46.1%, 39.8%, and 13.9%, respectively. However, on the profit side, the recent wave of memory chip price increases has caused the company's profits to show relatively sharp fluctuations. From 2023 to 2025, Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd.'s net profit fell from RMB 5.59 billion and RMB 5.60 billion to RMB 2.61 billion. This stems from the surge in demand for memory chips driven by AI large models, as suppliers shifted capacity toward higher-margin AI-related applications, causing consumer-grade memory chip supply to tighten and prices to rise across the board. Transmitted through the industry chain, the average procurement price of memory chips began to "rise with the tide," from RMB 49.5 per unit in 2023 to RMB 67.8 in 2024 and RMB 70.3 in 2025, and soaring to RMB 192.0 in the first four months of 2026. For Transsion, which focuses on value for money, this is a cost storm with nowhere to hide: smartphone gross margin fell from 22.5% in 2023 all the way to 17.7% in 2025, and overall gross margin slid from 23.2% to 18.7%. The company was forced to slow shipments in the second half of 2025 and pass on costs through price increases, causing full-year smartphone sales to drop from 106 million units in 2024 to 96.81 million units. To cope with cost pressure, Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd. chose to "walk on two legs" in 2026. First, starting in 2026 it raised smartphone prices to pass cost pressure downstream; second, it locked in low-cost inventory in the first half of 2026 and is still digesting previously stockpiled low-priced inventory. In this maneuvering, the low cost of old inventory continues to contribute to profit, while the high cost of new procurement has not yet been transmitted to the income statement. Benefiting from the cost side "lagging half a step behind," in the first four months of 2026 the company's revenue rebounded 30% year over year, gross margin rebounded to 21.9%, and net margin recovered to 5.8%. Fierce Competition in Emerging Markets: How to Continue Leading? In fact, looking at Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd.'s future from the current point in time, what matters more is structural upgrading. Among phones sold in Africa, the proportion of smartphones rose from 31.1% in 2023 to 43.8% in 2025. According to Frost & Sullivan data, the emerging market phone market size grew from US$142.9 billion in 2021 to US$175.5 billion in 2025, a compound annual growth rate of 5.3%, and is expected to reach US$266.7 billion by 2030, with growth accelerating to 8.7%; over the same period, smartphone penetration in emerging markets is still climbing. From this perspective, the transition from feature phones to smartphones is still only halfway through, meaning the space for replacement demand and unit price increases has not yet been exhausted. This is a track of "moderate overall growth and continuous structural upgrading," and Transsion is continuing to lead in emerging markets by virtue of its first-mover advantage built up over many years. On the flip side of the consumer electronics upgrade, competition in overseas markets is also intensifying. Domestic manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Honor, and OPPO continue to increase investment in Africa and emerging markets, and some competitors' smartphone shipment growth in Africa is significantly higher than Transsion's. What was once a blue ocean market has turned into red ocean competition. Therefore, Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd. needs to find new business growth points, and it is exploring how to extend toward higher-value-added software, ecosystems, and multi-category hardware. First, Transsion's answer is to "embrace AI," while opening up different growth paths based on years of understanding of localized R&D and sales in emerging markets. The prospectus explicitly states that the net proceeds from this H-share offering will mainly be invested in AI and terminal technology R&D, global brand and channel expansion, and mobile internet and IoT ecosystem layout, with the remainder supplementing daily operating capital. Investment in AI is placed first in the flow of fundraising, and this is also a keyword repeatedly emphasized in its prospectus and recent annual reports. But unlike the large-model route of leading domestic phone manufacturers, Transsion's AI R&D focuses more on on-device small models, multilingual localized AI assistants, voice noise reduction, visual recognition, and other application scenarios that fit the needs of emerging market users. It develops adaptations for multilingual, multicultural overseas markets, striving to embed AI capabilities across phones and all IoT terminal categories, enhance the differentiated competitiveness of hardware products, and break out of the involution dilemma of merely competing on hardware specifications and price. Second is global channel and brand upgrading. In the past, Transsion's advantages were concentrated in the mass downmarket, with itel focusing on extreme value for money while TECNO and Infinix gradually probed upward into the mid-to-high end. But in emerging markets outside Africa, brand awareness still has room for improvement. The fundraising will be used to improve offline distribution networks and carry out localized brand marketing, attempting to change the outside perception of Transsion as "only making low-priced phones" and further open up the growth ceiling in South Asian and Latin American markets. The third major direction is the mobile internet and IoT ecosystem. At present, the IoT segment already covers TWS earbuds, smartwatches, tablets, home appliances, and even light mobility products. Among these, TWS earbuds have already achieved the number one sales ranking in the African market, and the mobile internet business relies on the self-developed TranssionOS to monetize through app distribution, pre-installation, and advertising traffic. How to leverage hundreds of millions of existing terminal devices to convert hardware users into sources of internet service revenue and build a second growth curve will also become a core proposition for Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd.'s future. Taken together, Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd.'s "two sides of one body" are relatively distinct. Side A is its strong overseas localization capability proven by the market, a solid emerging market base, a massive terminal user base, and the foundational soil for ecosystem transformation; Side B is pressure on profitability in its core hardware business, new businesses still in cultivation, and increasingly fierce external competition. The A+H listing may be only the starting point of its transformation.