HKEX's first-half profit soars 39% to record on IPO boom, trading volume
Second-quarter net profit for the operator of Asia's third-largest stock market rose 41 per cent to HK$4.44 billion (US$569 million), or HK$3.51 per share, from the previous second-quarter high of HK$3.16 billion in 2024. This is the second consecutive quarterly record profit for the HKEX, following its HK$4.08 billion profit in the previous quarter.
HKEX, which recently
celebrated its 25th anniversary , also reported that its first-half profit rose 39 per cent to a record HK$8.52 billion, beating analysts' estimates at HK$8.14 billion. It also surpassed the previous half-yearly record profit of HK$6.93 billion in the second half of 2024.
'HKEX started 2025 from a position of strength, reporting the group's best-ever half-yearly revenue and profit,' said CEO Bonnie Chan Yiting in the results announcement. She will host a media briefing in the afternoon.
'After receiving a record number of listing applications over a six-month period, we enter the second half of 2025 with new initiatives that are under way to further enhance the competitiveness and attractiveness of our markets,' she said, pointing the exchange was preparing its infrastructure for a shorter settlement cycle and recently enhanced the IPO allotment regime.
HKEX shares rose 0.1 per cent to HK$434.4 at the noon trading break before the results announcement. They have risen 47 per cent this year, while the benchmark Hang Seng Index has advanced about 25 per cent.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
13 minutes ago
- South China Morning Post
China and India's ‘cold peace'; tree planting linked to droughts: SCMP daily highlights
Catch up on some of SCMP's biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing Planting trees in some parts of the world could cause droughts, according to a Chinese-led study that suggested greening efforts should take regional conditions into account to be effective. Canada's status as the dominant supplier of canola to China appears to be under threat as shipments plunge amid a tit-for-tat tariff battle between the two nations. And Australia is already emerging as an alternative source of the staple vegetable oil, analysts and industry insiders say. The PHL-16 is a truck-mounted self-propelled multiple rocket launcher that incorporates modular design and long-range precision strike capabilities. Photo: Handout As tensions intensify across the Taiwan Strait, Beijing has ramped up its firepower capacity to prepare for a possible war in the region. One of the weapon systems key to these efforts is the PHL-16, a truck-mounted self-propelled multiple rocket launcher (MRL) that incorporates modular design and long-range precision-strike capabilities.
South China Morning Post
13 minutes ago
- South China Morning Post
Tech war: DeepSeek hints China close to unveiling home-grown ‘next generation' AI chips
Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek said that China will soon have home-grown 'next generation' chips for AI stacking, fanning speculation over breakthroughs China may have achieved. In a one-line note on its official WeChat account explaining the 'UE8M0 FP8 scale' of its newly released model V3.1, the Hangzhou-based firm said that the model was particularly designed 'for the home-grown chips to be released soon'. It did not specify the vendor of these chips or whether their use would be in the training of AI models or inferencing. In a technical paper explaining V3.1, which integrates reasoning and non-reasoning modes into one model, DeepSeek said the model was trained 'using the UE8M0 FP8 scale data format to ensure compatibility with microscaling data formats'. The disclosure hints that China has made key progress in building a self-sufficient AI stack consisting of domestic technologies, a development that could help the country shrug off US chip export restrictions. FP8, or floating-point 8 is an 8-bit data format that reduces precision to speed up AI training and inference by using less memory and bandwidth. UE8M0, a format with 8 bits for exponent and 0 bits for mantissa, could further increase training efficiency and in turn reduce hardware requirements, as it could cut memory use by up to 75 per cent. DeepSeek's use of these formats, if combined with China's domestic chips, could translate to a new breakthrough in hardware-software coordination. The revelation marks a bold claim from the company, which has been relatively quiet since it shocked the world with the release of its R1 reasoning model in January 2025 and its V3 model in December 2024. DeepSeek said its V3 model was trained on 2,048 Nvidia H800 chips. It did not disclose the chips it used to train R1 or V3.1.
South China Morning Post
13 minutes ago
- South China Morning Post
Overseas AI data centre demand powers up China's diesel generator exports
China's exports of diesel generator sets are on the rise as the global boom in artificial intelligence (AI) drives investment in data centres, which in turn is fuelling demand for reliable backup power systems – an area where diesel units remain critical. Analysts said diesel generator sets sell for higher prices overseas, opening up vast opportunities for overseas market growth. In the first seven months of this year, China exported 502,463 diesel generator sets, up more than 20 per cent year on year. The value of the shipments rose more than 28 per cent to US$2.52 billion, according to data released on Wednesday by the General Administration of Customs in Beijing. In July alone, China exported 74,962 diesel generator sets, registering an 8.2 per cent year-on-year increase, while the value climbed 22.9 per cent to US$382.55 million, customs data showed. The rise in diesel generator set exports comes as growing demand for AI services and related computing capacity drives investment in data centres , where diesel units play a critical role as backup power to keep them running during grid outages. Diesel generator sets made in China sell for around 3 million yuan (US$417,807) domestically and about 4 million yuan abroad, according to a note released by analysts at GF Securities this week. 'In the future, the valuation system for diesel generator sets will shift from domestic computing infrastructure benchmarks to international pricing, opening up vast opportunities in overseas markets and expanding long-term market value,' they said.
