Apple’s two biggest Chinese suppliers rushed to Hong Kong in the same week. Luxshare is seeking around $3bn, Lingyi recently put in $1.1bn. Both use cash to cycle from smartphone components to AI hardware and humanoid robots.
The companies that make your AirPods are quietly expanding. This week two went to look for it in the same place.
Luxshare Precision includes AirPods and a growing share of iPhones. It has begun gauging interest in a Hong Kong listing that could raise nearly $3bn, Bloomberg reports. That will be among the city’s biggest deals this year. A few days ago, another Apple supplier Lingyi iTech raised HK$8.3bn ($1.1bn). It priced its shares too high and canceled more than 100 orders.
These two agreements are not accidental. They are the same bet, placed twice. China’s hardware supply chain is bracing itself for a new cycle, and it’s looking for overseas capital to fund that transformation.
June rush to Hong Kong
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Hong Kong’s stock market for the first time has crashed. Bloomberg Intelligence expects the city’s listings to top $43bn this year, a six-year high. June alone is expected to bring more deals than any other month in 2026.
The timing is deliberate. By starting to take investor orders before the end of June, companies avoid filing revised financial statements. That deadline helps explain why so many names flood the door at once. That’s also why Luxshare moved so quickly.
The company passed a hearing on its application to be listed on the Hong Kong exchange on Tuesday, days after China’s securities regulator gave it the green light.
The pattern is larger than the two. Mainland firms have been shifting to Hong Kong as the route to the New York float narrows. High-tech startups now lead the market. AI developer Zhipu measures billion-dollar share sales in the city. Apple’s suppliers are a different flavor of the same trade: not frontier software, but industries that make hardware a reality.
From AirPods to humanoid robots
What the money is is the interesting part. Lingyi iTech makes consumer electronics components, but its upside for investors seems to go beyond the smartphone. The company plans to spend on research, capacity and acquisitions as it moves into AI hardware and humanoid robots.
That push is concrete. Lingyi is building a state-of-the-art factory in Beijing and has told investors it targets 500,000 humanoid robots a year by 2030. The concept is simple. A humanoid robot needs precise motors, sensors, thermal systems and structural components. Those are the same parts that Chinese plants already turn out for phones, cars and drones.
Remaking the smartphone line of robots is an improvement, not a reinvention. Lingyi is not the only one making a change. Competitors such as Lens Technology and AAC Technologies are shifting their precision component plants to robots.
Lingyi’s numbers offer an opportunity to try. Revenue rose 16% to 51.4 billion yuan ($7.6bn) by 2025. Its Shenzhen-listed shares have doubled in the year, boosting its market value to almost $21bn. Controlled by founder Zeng Fangqin since 2006, the company has placed nearly 300 institutional orders for its Hong Kong chain, with cornerstone backers including smartphone maker Honor and Sunny Optical.
The top 10 investors took more than half the share, a sign of how concentrated the demand was. It debuted in the city on June 26, the biggest maiden offering since Victory Giant’s $3bn listing in April.
It’s Luxshare’s time
Luxshare is a very heavy weight. Its Shenzhen shares have more than doubled in the past year, giving it a market value of more than $77bn. Revenue is expected to reach 332.3 billion yuan ($48.9bn) in 2025, up 24% year-on-year. Cic Securities, Goldman Sachs and China International Capital Corp lead the organized list.
The company also has an investor story like. Chairman and CEO Grace Wang started on a Shenzhen production line in 1988 and founded Luxshare in 2004. This month Fortune named her among the top ten 2026 Most Powerful Women in Business, the only executive from China to make that category. At the beginning of the year, she came out on top of Forbes China’s list of the most successful businesswomen in the country.
Luxshare has spread beyond Apple. It now operates across Asia, North America and Europe, with positions in 5G infrastructure, automotive electronics and smart manufacturing. Its latest sustainability report states that clean energy now accounts for 64% of its consumption, that total Scope 1 and 2 emissions will decrease by 25% compared to 2022, and that women hold 37.5% of board seats.
The company aims to be carbon neutral by 2050 and achieved the highest CDP climate rating for the second year running. For a contract manufacturer chasing Western customers and Western capital, that scorecard is part of the field.
A case of caution
There are reasons to keep a cool head. Both Hong Kong deals are priced at steep discounts to mainland company shares, with Lingyi’s offer set at around 50% below its Shenzhen close. Investors are obviously hungry, but they also want a margin of safety.
The robot thesis is still very moving. China’s humanoid industry is crowded, and a recent survey found more than 150 firms chasing a market where only 23% of buyers said they were satisfied.
A factory that can make half a million robots isn’t worth much if no one wants to buy them at a profit. The supply chain has proven it can build at scale. Demand for scale is an unanswered question.
History also adds a warning. China’s market regulator has fined Luxshare and chipmaker Wingtech for breaching the agreement’s disclosure rules. Even supply chain champions operate under intense legal scrutiny.
None of this dampens the appetite on display this week. So the open question is not whether China’s giants can raise money. They obviously can. Whether the pivot from phones to robots is the next big wave of manufacturing, or the market’s most well-funded bet that hasn’t arrived yet.
