(Yicai) Sept. 3 -- China’s Hive Box Holdings, the operator of the world’s largest smart delivery locker network, has filed for an initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Hive Box will use the proceeds to expand in lower-tier Chinese cities and overseas, reinforce its out-of-home logistics capabilities, and lift research and development spending and strategic investment, the company said in its prospectus filed on Aug. 30.

Founded in 2015, Hive Box received investment from China’s four major couriers -- SF Holding, Yunda Holding, STO Express, and ZTO Express -- and the Chinese arm of Singaporean warehousing firm GLP. The Shenzhen-based business will become the first Chinese smart delivery locker operator to go public.

SF founder Wang Wei is the largest shareholder, with a 36.5 percent stake. The other three couriers divested in 2018. The IPO will make Hive Box the fifth listed company controlled by Wang after SF, Kerry Logistics Network, SF Intra-City Industrial, and SF Real Estate Investment Trust.

Hive Box developed fast thanks to the robust growth of China’s e-commerce sector. As of May 31, it had 330,200 smart lockers with about 29.9 million compartments servicing 209,000 communities across 31 Chinese provincial-level regions.

The firm’s net loss shrank to CNY541.5 million (USD76 million) last year from CNY2.1 billion (USD295 million) in 2021, while revenue soared 52 percent to CNY3.8 billion, it said.

In the first five months of this year, Hive Box turned profitable for the first time, reversing a loss of CNY313.8 million a year earlier into a CNY71.6 million (USD10.1 million) profit. Revenue jumped 34 percent to CNY1.9 billion in the period.

Editor: Futura Costaglione