iQIYI Files for Listing in Hong Kong Again, Breaking into the Capital Market: The Anxiety and Self-Help of a Long-Form Video Giant

Ask AI · Why did iQIYI choose a secondary listing in Hong Kong during the industry’s winter?

By | Huang Yu

After two consecutive years of revenue decline and the pains of its core business reaching its peak, as the only independently listed platform within the “iQIYI-Tencent Video-Mango” group, iQIYI has decided to knock again on the doors of the capital markets.

On March 30, iQIYI officially announced that the company has secretly filed its listing application with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, seeking a listing and trading authorization for its Class A ordinary shares on the HKEX Main Board. This move is intended to broaden its financing channels in Hong Kong’s capital market and expand its investor base in Asia.

To steady market sentiment and demonstrate confidence in long-term business prospects, iQIYI approved a share repurchase plan effective immediately on the same day, which will repurchase up to $100 million worth of shares over the next 18 months.

Meanwhile, iQIYI also announced that its self-developed AI agent product “Nadao Pro,” designed specifically for professional long-form video generation, has officially begun public commercialization pilot testing.

With the listing, the buyback, and the product launch—this “combination punch”—what it reflects is iQIYI’s sense of urgency amid today’s stock-and-battle in a market with limited incremental growth.

In addition, internet analyst Zhang Shule told Wall Street Journal that unlike other long-form video platforms, iQIYI’s offline experiential guides urgently need a funding “infusion” via an IPO.

Back in 2018, iQIYI joined the IPO extravaganza in the U.S. when it was still not profitable but desperately needed capital. Yet these years of performance in the U.S. stock market have confirmed iQIYI founder and CEO Gong Yu’s earlier judgment: it’s not easy for overseas capital markets to truly understand the business model of China’s homegrown entertainment companies.

At the time of its IPO, iQIYI suffered a break below the offering price on its first trading day; the closing price fell by more than 10% from the $18 offering price. After that, the share price continued to trend downward. As of the close on March 27, iQIYI’s stock price was only about $1.2 per share, with a market cap of merely tens of hundreds of millions of dollars—nearly 90% higher in value erased compared with its IPO first day.

It has long been no secret in the industry that iQIYI wants to pursue a second listing in Hong Kong. After all, compared with Tencent Video and Youku being backed by major conglomerates, iQIYI—already independently listed—has weaker “war chest” capabilities and must seek more external funding.

As early as August 2020, Bloomberg reported that iQIYI was in discussions with Credit Suisse about the possibility of a second listing in Hong Kong.

At that time, the market generally believed that Chinese concept stocks returning to list in Hong Kong or listing on mainland China’s A-share market was an inevitable trend. According to Wall Street Journal, around 2020, a number of internet companies—such as Alibaba, JD.com, NetEase, Baidu, Bilibili, and Kuaishou—were crowding back to Hong Kong for listings.

Although iQIYI’s return plan didn’t materialize that year, since then, news about iQIYI planning to list in Hong Kong has been coming up frequently.

In 2023, when rumors resurfaced again, Gong Yu also responded to the media, saying that the company is conducting feasibility research on the technical details of the listing, but it has not yet set a specific timeline. At the same time, he said the company is eager to attract new investors to provide new funding for increasing investment in original content and the use of AI.

Gong Yu’s confidence came from improvements in iQIYI’s financial indicators.

Thanks to cost reductions and efficiency improvements, plus blockbuster hits such as “The World Between Us” and “Love Like the Galaxy” and “Queen of Hanyuan” and “The Princess Weiyoung” and others, in 2022 iQIYI reached a turning point and achieved full-year operating profit for the first time. That was a moment of pride and relief. That year, iQIYI’s losses also narrowed significantly, with year-on-year losses attributable to iQIYI’s shareholders shrinking from a net profit loss of RMB 6.17 billion in 2021 to RMB 136 million.

Gong Yu even called 2022 iQIYI’s “breakthrough year” and “miracle year.”

In 2023, “Reset” again brought iQIYI significant growth, with key metrics—including total revenue, operating profit, net profit, and cash flow—all reaching their historical best levels.

Good times didn’t last long. Under the impact of the film and television industry’s winter, short dramas, and other pressures, over the past two years iQIYI hasn’t been doing too well. Revenue has declined for two straight years, and in 2025 it was down 7% year over year.

Due to the drag from revenue decline, although iQIYI has achieved Non-GAAP operating profit for four consecutive years, in 2025 the amount of that profit shrank by 70% year over year, and iQIYI’s net profit attributable to the company turned from profit to loss.

Five years ago, the long-form video industry was at the tail end of the “burning money to buy scale” phase, when every company was fighting for absolute dominance in the industry.

However, with time passing and circumstances changing, when iQIYI finally takes the concrete step of submitting its application to Hong Kong, the underlying logic behind it has already undergone a profound shift: from “seeking development” and “grabbing territory” back then, to now “seeking breakthroughs” while its core business is under pressure.

Facing dual pressures—both the ceiling on the core business and the pressure of profitability—iQIYI must tell the capital markets a new growth story, and offline experiential amusement parks have become one of its most important chips at this stage.

It is understood that iQIYI’s first iQIYI Paradise opened for business on February 8 this year in Yangzhou. Compared with traditional theme parks, its goal is to deliver an immersive experience by combining IP with technologies such as AI and XR. According to iQIYI’s plan, two more iQIYI Paradise locations—one in Kaifeng and one in Beijing—are expected to open within the year, and the park business will move into large-scale operations.

Zhang Shule believes that even for high-quality film and television IP, its direct returns (box office, pre-roll or mid-roll advertising, etc.) often can only manage to break even or make a small profit. Learning from Disney and Universal, turning IP into an experiential, merchandise-and-toys ecosystem, creating a powerful derivative supply chain, and achieving an ideal 3:7 ratio between entertainment and merchandise-related revenues has long been a particularly urgent final fantasy for film and television companies in China.

Although iQIYI claims to operate the parks using a light-asset model, mainly responsible for outputting IP content, providing technical support, and handling operational management, building a complete IP ecosystem closed-loop is still an extremely demanding long-distance race that tests both capital and endurance.

Beyond this story extending into offline spaces, iQIYI’s other growth driver is anchored in expanding into cutting-edge AI technology and overseas markets.

Whether it’s building a map of offline experiential entertainment venues or fully embracing AI large models and pushing into overseas markets, it requires abundant funding as a foundation. This is also what makes an HK listing an extremely realistic and inevitable choice for iQIYI.

This is not only iQIYI’s self-rescue move to combat growth anxiety; it is also a brave early attempt by China’s long-form video industry in exploring the “Eastern Disney” model. The outlook may be promising, but the road ahead is still long. The market is waiting for iQIYI to deliver a more convincing answer.