File photo/Wen Duo (NBD)

The first quarter of 2023 saw 62 Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) raising 54.4 billion yuan ($8.4 billion) in China's stock market.

This is significantly lower than the same period of 2022, which saw 86 IPOs raising 179.8 billion yuan.

The majority of the IPOs were listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's Growth Enterprise Market (13 IPOs, raising 24.076 billion yuan) and the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Main Board (12 IPOs, raising 11.537 billion yuan).

The remaining IPOs were listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange (21 IPOs) and the Science and Technology Innovation Board (8 IPOs).

The successful IPOs of this quarter were largely driven by the strong market sentiment of artificial intelligence (AI) concepts. The overall IPO market still showed a positive outlook, with few new stocks breaking their issue price.

As a result of the IPOs, over 3.7 billion yuan of IPO underwriting fees were collected by 26 securities companies in this quarter. Citic Securities, Guojin Securities, CITIC Securities, Haitong Securities, Guoxin Securities, and Minsheng Securities were the top six companies, accounting for almost 47% of the total IPOs.

In conclusion, the first quarter of 2023 saw a decline in the number of IPOs and the amount of capital raised, but the performance of the new stocks was better than expected. The strong market sentiment of AI concepts and the surge of underwriting fees collected by securities companies also contributed to the overall positive outlook of the IPO market.