Insta360s IPO steigt um 300 % an, DJI und Dreame stürzen sich ebenfalls in den heißen Wettlauf um die Bildgebung | Beobachtung neuer Aktien
Author | Zhang Ziyi
Editor | Yuan Silai
After five years, Insta360 successfully entered the STAR Market.
As of the close on June 13th, Insta360's stock price reached 171.8 yuan per share. Compared with the issue price of 47.27 yuan per share, the stock price has nearly tripled 3.5 times after listing, and its market value once exceeded 70 billion yuan.
At the media group interview on June 12th, Liu Jingkang, the founder and chairman of Insta360, modestly shared his views on the soaring stock price of the company:
"Part of the reason is that the number of shares of our company in circulation in the market at this moment is less than that of most companies at the same time point, which is one of the reasons for the high stock price. In the current market environment, investors have confidence and expectations in overseas - going companies, consumer electronics companies, and technology companies. Our company has some intersections with these keywords, and people have translated this expectation into price."
Anyway, Insta360's listing is definitely a remarkable event in the capital market in 2025. As one of the few survivors in the hardware track, Insta360 has finally waited for the moment to succeed.
Ten years ago, when Insta360 was founded, it happened to coincide with the "Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation" policy. The cafes on Zhongguancun Entrepreneurship Street were crowded with people, and young entrepreneurs saw infinite possibilities in their eyes. That year, 25 - year - old Liu Jingkang, the founder of Insta360, won the second - place in the 2nd "Internet +" College Students' Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition. The third - place winner beside him was Dai Wei of ofo, and no one remembers the champion anymore.
Now, Liu Jingkang has become one of the youngest chairmen on the STAR Market, and Insta360 has become the global leader in both the consumer - grade action camera and panoramic camera markets. Its revenue has increased from 1.328 billion yuan in 2021 to 5.6 billion yuan in 2024, a five - fold increase in three years.
Undoubtedly, Insta360 is a benchmark. It shows the outside world the market potential of consumer - grade action cameras. However, a benchmark is bound to attract others to catch up and be challenged.
01 The All - around Competition in 2025
Insta360's product line is not complex. Its main products include consumer - grade panoramic cameras, action cameras, handheld photography devices, network cameras, professional - grade VR panoramic cameras, and AI video conferencing all - in - one machines.
For many years, the revenue from consumer - grade intelligent imaging devices of Insta360 has accounted for 80% of the total. Last year, the revenue from this category reached 4.79 billion yuan.
According to Frost & Sullivan data, in 2023, Insta360's sales revenue market share in the global consumer - grade panoramic camera market reached 67.2%, and its market share in the professional - grade panoramic camera market reached 61.4%. It ranks among the top two in the global action camera market and is the global leader in panoramic cameras.
The R & D of panoramic action camera products has truly enabled Insta360 to achieve both fame and fortune.
The ONE X series is Insta360's ace product category. This product lowers the threshold and cost of sports shooting and pioneered the function of "shoot first, frame later". Users only need to hold a selfie stick or wear the camera on their heads during sports to record the 360 - degree scenery along the way, and the footage can be automatically edited later.
In October 2018, Insta360 launched the first - generation ONE X; by April 2025, it launched the X5. According to the prospectus, the revenue of the ONE X series has accounted for about 50% of the total for a long time. As of 2024, the revenue of the ONE X series products reached about 2.92 billion yuan, making it a real ever - green product.
Before this year, in the panoramic action camera field, there were almost no comparable products to Insta360's ONE X series. The first - mover advantage has allowed Insta360 to dominate the panoramic camera track.
However, the most formidable opponent has decided to enter the market. Previously, 36Kr exclusively reported that DJI plans to launch its first consumer - grade panoramic camera, DJI Osmo 360, in July.
In recent years, the competition between Insta360 and DJI in the action camera field has become increasingly fierce. While DJI has successively entered the intelligent imaging field with its Pocket series of pocket cameras and Action series of action cameras, Insta360 has also started to fight back.
Insta360 launched the ACE product series in 2023. This series consists of action cameras. Before that, except for the wearable camera Go series, Insta360's ONE R and ONE X series products were all panoramic action cameras.
According to Insta360's prospectus, the revenue of the ACE series products has grown rapidly within the company. In 2023 and 2024, the revenue of this series reached 96.5607 million yuan and 580 million yuan respectively, accounting for 2.69% and 10.44% of the total.
The revenue contribution of Insta360's wearable action camera GO series, which was pioneered by the company, is also good. In 2024, it contributed 900 million yuan in revenue, and its revenue share has been increasing year by year, reaching 16.3%.
Huaxi Securities found that in the field of handheld intelligent imaging devices, Insta360 has laid out 6 product lines with the most comprehensive sub - categories and the fastest product iteration speed, with an average of 3 - 5 new models updated annually; DJI has 3 product lines, among which the Pocket camera is an exclusive product (a portable alternative to mobile phones/cameras + gimbal products), and its iteration speed is relatively fast, with an average of 2 - 3 new models updated annually.
(Source: Huaxi Securities)
Comparing Insta360's R & D speed, it can be found that since 2022, its product R & D speed has significantly accelerated, and its products have been iterated and updated every year since then. The same is true for DJI.
DJI's pursuit of Insta360 is quite obvious. In addition to the panoramic action camera to be launched in July this year, foreign media have also reported that DJI's Osmo Nano under development may be its smallest action camera. In terms of form and function, this product is undoubtedly targeting Insta360's GO series.
Regarding the potential market competition from DJI and other enterprises, Liu Jingkang compares the intelligent imaging market to the game market, believing that the possibility of highly homogeneous competition is small. In his view, the imaging market needs to cover a wide range of scenarios, and there are many shooting methods in each scenario. Imaging companies have a large space to create new shooting methods and functions. The key to market competition lies in whether they can more acutely capture the unmet needs of customers than their competitors.
"This industry not only compares innovation and creativity but also the implementation at the engineering level. You need to maintain a very high frequency to continuously capture new customer needs and then continuously create through the combination of software, or software and hardware, chips, and materials."
Indeed, especially this year, Insta360 has accelerated its product R & D speed and marketing efforts, which has indirectly affected its profits.
According to Insta360's prospectus, the company's revenue from January to March 2025 was about 1.36 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 40.7%; the net profit attributable to the parent company and the non - recurring profit after deduction were about 180 million yuan and 160 million yuan respectively, a year - on - year decrease of 2.5% and 4.79%.
Insta360 explained that the main reason is that the company has continuously promoted the development of new product lines, the upgrading of key technologies, and the expansion of the technology map, and the R & D investment has continued to increase, resulting in a 3.21 - percentage - point increase in the R & D expense ratio from January to March 2025 compared with the same period last year; to further enhance brand influence, the company has increased market promotion investment in online marketing, offline exhibition activities, and offline direct - sales stores, resulting in a 3.18 - percentage - point increase in the sales expense ratio from January to March 2025 compared with the same period last year.
While Insta360 has a strong sense of crisis, it has also been more motivated for all - around competition.
02 The Barriers of Panoramic Technology
Listing means huge wealth returns for founders and shareholders. However, for Insta360, it will be exposed to the public eye and face more rigorous scrutiny.
Especially when DJI starts all - around competition, defense is definitely not a strategy that the capital market will appreciate. The capital market cares about expectations and the future. Insta360 must be more aggressive and seize the next growth curve.
"Insta360's advantage lies in its precipitation in panoramic technology. There are many pitfalls to overcome, and it won't be easy to break through quickly. Most enterprises involved in this field start with action cameras, and DJI is no exception." An industry insider in the intelligent imaging field told 36Kr.
The core component of intelligent imaging devices is the camera module, which accounts for up to 58.5% of the cost. Among the CMOS image sensor, DSP processing chip, and optical lens, only the optical lens has been completely replaced by domestic products, and the supply sources of the others are concentrated in countries such as Europe, the United States, Japan, and South Korea.
This also means that there is limited room for improvement in the hardware of intelligent imaging device enterprises, and there is more room for improvement in their software technology capabilities.
Insta360 attaches great importance to technology R & D. According to the prospectus, from 2022 to 2024, the company's R & D expenditures were 256 million yuan, 448 million yuan, and 776 million yuan respectively, with a total of 1.48 billion yuan. The R & D investment as a proportion of operating income has been stable at 13.16% in the past three years. In 2024, the R & D investment increased by 73.5% year - on - year, far exceeding the revenue growth.
As of the end of 2024, R & D technicians accounted for as high as 57.68% of Insta360's total employees, ranking among the top among STAR Market enterprises. It has a comprehensive patent layout, with 900 domestic and foreign authorized patents, including 189 invention patents, covering core technologies such as panoramic stitching, FlowState anti - shake, and AI image processing.
Huaxi Securities believes that Insta360 started with panoramic technology, and AI will be the core technology in the next stage. The company has created innovative functions such as key - frame marking, deep tracking, shuttle time - lapse, and bullet time, and has made a lot of forward - looking investments in the use of AI and high - process chips.
(Source: Huaxi Securities)
Insta360's innovative functions are reflected in the product end by providing consumers with more possibilities and ways of shooting content. This is an important step for panoramic action cameras to open up the market.
Panoramic action cameras are different from ordinary action cameras. The uniqueness of their lenses also determines the difficulty of shooting. Insta360 believes that what consumers really want is not the camera but cool content that can be quickly generated and shared on social media.
The function of Insta360's invisible selfie stick uses the fact that panoramic action cameras can capture 360° images. After shooting, through editing, the selfie stick can be made invisible, achieving the same effect as being filmed by others or even by a drone. The same is true for shooting methods such as bullet time and asteroid perspective.
Insta360 has cleverly used the panoramic perspective to extend more shooting methods and possibilities, reducing the shooting difficulty of the camera. This is also the key for Insta360 to enter the mass market from the niche market of panoramic action cameras.
In recent years, Insta360 has shown a slight stagnation in the innovation of camera product shooting methods.
Liu Jingkang also explained the reason. For a long time in the past, the company's product development was mainly focused on shooting methods. In the process, it was found that many customers were stuck in the basic application requirements of the products before practicing these shooting methods. In the past two years, Insta360 has spent more energy on the application of basic requirements in vertical scenarios, including some invisible safety requirements, such as the problem of sound recording when the camera is moving at high speed and the problem of hovering underwater.
"At this point, we think that many of these types of requirements have been almost solved, so we have shifted more strength and resources to the construction of creative effects and invested a lot of designer resources." Liu Jingkang told 36Kr.
In the past, Insta360 avoided direct confrontation with DJI and GoPro through the differentiation of panoramic technology; in the action camera field, it achieved a breakthrough through functions such as AI intelligent editing (FlashCut).
The early - mover advantage of products and technological foresight have all contributed to Insta360's long - standing success.
However, the entry of DJI and Dreame has made the competition in the action camera market more intense, and Insta360 faces more challenges and pressure. For future consumers, panoramic action cameras are no longer the only option.
In Liu Jingkang's view, GoPro's past success has proven the rigid demand for the target scenarios of action cameras, which is inspiring for Insta360's development. In the future, the competition in the overseas market will not come from international competitors but from Chinese competitors. The real challenge is: in the special category of intelligent imaging, a category similar to the game market, is it possible for Insta360 to continue to develop in the market without engaging in price wars, even if others do?
"I think this is also very inspiring and meaningful."