(Yicai Global) Dec. 23 -- Chinese e-cigarette giant Shenzhen Smoore Technology is mulling a listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to raise USD300 million to USD400 million, even as the sands of the market landscape shift as China and the company's overseas markets weigh imposing strict limits on the e-cigarette industry and even outright bans on vaping products.

The Shenzhen-based firm submitted a prospectus to HKEX in the name of its parent firm Smoore International Holdings on Dec. 19 to seek listing on the main board, with Hong Kong-based investment group CLSA as its sole sponsor.

Smoore formed in 2009 and went public on the National Equities Exchange and Quotations in December 2015. The firm develops, produces and sells electronic atomizers and open electronic atomization equipment and advanced personal vaporizers, public data show.

Smoore terminated its NEEQ listing on June 5, the firm announced on June 4 based on considerations of capital market development and the company's business development plan to list on other bourses.

The firm reported CNY3.3 billion (USD470.6 million) in operating revenue in the first half, up nearly double from a year earlier, and CNY931 million (USD133 million) in net profit, up roughly fivefold, per its prospectus. The US is the firm's largest overseas market. Smoore earned CNY1.4 billion -- almost one-third of its total revenue -- from the US and 18.6 percent from the Chinese mainland in the first half. Hong Kong yielded over one-fifth of the total revenue, but all came from re-export and trans-shipment.

Smoore has become the world's biggest electronic atomizing equipment maker by revenue, seizing one-tenth of the global market last year, the prospectus stated.

The business terrain of the battery-powered smoking device industry has changed, despite Smoore's good performance.

China unveiled policies last month banning e-cigarette sales to minors. An outcrop of dramatic vaping-related illnesses in the US has  also stirred government concerns there. The country is thus likely to limit the vaping industry to protect teen health, US President Donald Trump said in September.

Many US state governments have already announced curbs on vaping implements and paraphernalia, so investors may prove wary of committing their capital to a sector that may well soon go up in smoke.

Editor: Ben Armour