AS per one OECD study, 2017 saw the highest number of Asian company IPOs in two decades, reinforcing status as the world’s largest users of public stock markets.

Also in 2017, a record number of 1074 companies got listed in Asia, almost twice as many as the annual average between 2000 and 2016. More than 90% of these were non-financials, with the largest number of issuers from China with 470 companies, followed by companies from India (158); Japan (82); Hong Kong, China (73) and Korea (57).

The strong IPO activity in 2017 reinforced the Asian companies’ status as the largest users of public equity markets globally. Companies from China have been the largest users of IPOs not only in the region but also worldwide, exceeding companies from the United States, by almost 170%. Companies from India, Korea and Japan are also globally important users of public equity markets. Notably, several Asian emerging markets, such as Viet Nam, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, rank higher in the list than most advanced capital markets.
 
In 2017 Asian companies accounted for 43% of all public equity capital raised in the world. But despite a record number of listings in 2017, there was only a modest pickup in the total amount of capital raised compared to 2016. Out of the USD 81 billion raised by Asian companies in 2017, 75% (USD 61 billion) was by non-financial companies and 25% (USD 20 billion) by financial companies. Similar to the overall trend since 2000, Chinese companies accounted for the largest share followed by India; Korea; Japan; Thailand and Hong Kong, China.