Deloitte China said it expects the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong to be the world’s second-largest initial public offering destination in 2026, and has projected it will log around 160 new listings and raise at least HK$480 billion ($61.2 billion), which will be a record-high for the city’s IPO market.
But the global auditing advisory firm added that uncertainty around the interest rate movement in the United States for the remainder of the year will impact market sentiment concerning the IPO market in the special administrative region.
Propelled by a strong pipeline of mega-listings, policy incentives for A-to-H listings, and a massive fundraising wave from Chinese mainland artificial intelligence enterprises, Deloitte China said Hong Kong has recorded 116 new listings that have successfully raised HK$387.9 billion in the first nine months of this year, representing a year-on-year surge of 76 percent and 112 percent, respectively.
The majority of this year’s proceeds (73 percent) were concentrated within nine mega-listings and 20 large listings. Moreover, proceeds from 38 dual A-to-H listings accounted for nearly 70 percent of the total funds raised.
Deloitte China added that the city has an IPO pipeline of over 500 applications in which there may be three to four mega-listings targeting to raise at least HK$10 billion each.
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The targeted IPO candidates are expected to be sectors tied directly to large-scale AI model training and infrastructure, such as high-performance computing, semiconductors, data centers, and advanced power supplies.
Deloitte China previously forecast that the Hong Kong equity market would raise HK$300 billion and global auditing firm now has revised the forecast upwards by 60 percent.
“The IPO market remains optimistic, and investors think the valuation level of AI-related companies listed in Hong Kong is reasonable, leading to significant oversubscription for IPO shares. If there are no major black swan events in the fourth quarter, the IPO fund-raising target should be achieved,” Deloitte China Southern Region Managing Partner Edward Au said in a press conference on Thursday.
“AI companies need to invest heavily to remain ahead of the game and this explains why the IPO market benefits from the IPOs of AI enterprises. While AI-related company valuations have fluctuated, they have led to a revaluation of upstream and downstream industries, resulting in a higher fundraising amount than originally estimated,” Au explained.
But Au cautioned that the uncertainty arising from the US interest rate movement will impact the Hong Kong IPO market. “These uncertainties will affect large IPOs and if the market fluctuates significantly due to interest rate hikes, investors' willingness to invest in risky assets will be affected, dragging down overall forecasts.”
Driven by two mega-listings of Space Exploration Technologies Corp and SK Hynix, Deloitte China said the US Nasdaq market was the world’s largest IPO market in the first three quarters of 2026, with 85 new listings raising HK$1,122 billion. The Nasdaq market ranking was followed by the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, the New York Stock Exchange, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and National Stock Exchange of India.
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In the first three quarters of this year, total IPO proceeds from this year’s top 10 IPO deals totaled HK$1,199 billion, up 5.69 times from the previous year, Deloitte China data showed.
