Insta360's IPO Soars 300%, DJI and Photon Jump into the Fierce Battle in the Imaging Field | New Stock Observation
Author | Zhang Ziyi
Editor | Yuan Silai
After five years, Insta360 successfully entered the Science and Technology Innovation Board.
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:
"One fact is that the number of shares of our company circulating 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 these expectations into prices."
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 catch up 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 second "Internet +" College Students' Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition. The third - place winner beside him was Dai Wei of ofo, and no one remembers the first - place winner now.
Now, Liu Jingkang has become one of the youngest chairmen on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, and Insta360 has become the global leader in both the consumer - grade action camera and panoramic camera markets. Its revenue increased from 1.328 billion yuan in 2021 to 5.6 billion yuan in 2024, more than quintupling in three years.
There is no doubt that Insta360 is a benchmark. It shows the outside world the market potential of consumer - grade action cameras. However, a benchmark is destined to attract others to catch up and be challenged.
01 The All - around Competition in 2025
Insta360's product line is not complicated. 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 has accounted for 80% of Insta360's total revenue. Last year, the revenue from this category reached 4.79 billion yuan.
According to Frost & Sullivan data, in 2023, Insta360 accounted for 67.2% of the global consumer - grade panoramic camera market in terms of sales volume and 61.4% of the professional - grade panoramic camera market. 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 brought Insta360 both fame and fortune.
The ONE X series is Insta360's ace product category. This product lowers the threshold and cost of action shooting. It has pioneered a function of "shoot first, frame later". Users only need to hold a selfie stick or wear the camera on their heads during sports to capture 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 always accounted for about 50%. 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 allowed Insta360 to dominate the panoramic camera market.
However, the most formidable competitor has decided to enter the market. Previously, Yingke reported exclusively that DJI plans to launch its first consumer - grade panoramic camera, the DJI Osmo 360, in July.
In recent years, the competition between Insta360 and DJI in the action camera field has become increasingly fierce. As 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 series of action cameras in 2023. 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 revenue.
The wearable action camera GO series, pioneered by Insta360, has also contributed well to the revenue. 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 product segmentation and the fastest product iteration speed, with an average of 3 - 5 new products launched annually. DJI has 3 product lines, among which the Pocket camera is an exclusive product (a portable alternative to mobile phones/cameras + gimbals), and its iteration speed is relatively fast, with an average of 2 - 3 new products launched 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 clear. In addition to the panoramic action camera to be launched in July this year, foreign media have also reported that DJI's Osmo Nano 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 covers a wide range of scenarios, and there are many shooting methods in each scenario. Imaging companies have a large space to create new 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 requires both innovation and creativity, as well as engineering implementation. You need to constantly capture new customer needs at a very high frequency and then continuously create through the combination of software, 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 were about 180 million yuan and 160 million yuan respectively, a year - on - year decrease of 2.5% and 4.79%.
Insta360 explained that this is mainly because the company has continuously promoted the development of new product lines, the upgrade of key technologies, and the expansion of the technology map, and has continuously increased R & D investment. As a result, the R & D expense ratio from January to March 2025 increased by 3.21 percentage points compared with the same period last year. To further enhance brand influence, the company has increased market promotion investment in online marketing, offline exhibitions, and offline direct - sales stores. As a result, the sales expense ratio from January to March 2025 increased by 3.18 percentage points compared with the same period last year.
While Insta360 has a strong sense of crisis, it is also 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 stringent 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 accumulation of panoramic technology. There are many difficulties to overcome, and it is not easy to make a quick breakthrough. Most enterprises entering this field start with action cameras, and DJI is no exception." An industry insider in the intelligent imaging field told Yingke.
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 of the rest comes mainly from countries in Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea.
This means that there is limited room for intelligent imaging device enterprises to improve in terms of hardware, 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 and technical personnel accounted for 57.68% of Insta360's total employees, ranking among the top among enterprises on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. It has a comprehensive patent layout, with 900 authorized patents at home and abroad, including 189 invention patents, covering core technologies such as panoramic stitching, FlowState anti - shake, and AI image processing.
(Source: Huaxi Securities)
Insta360's innovative functions provide consumers with more possibilities and ways of shooting on the product side. This is an important step for panoramic action cameras to enter 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 itself, but cool content that can be quickly generated and shared on social media.
Insta360's invisible selfie - stick function 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 a drone. The same is true for shooting methods such as bullet time and asteroid perspective.
Insta360 has cleverly used the panoramic perspective to develop 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 panoramic action camera market.
In recent years, Insta360 has made little progress in the innovative shooting methods of its camera products.
Liu Jingkang also explained the reason. For a long time in the past, the company's product development focused on shooting methods. In the process, it was found that many customers were stuck on the basic application requirements of the products before trying these shooting methods. In the past two years, Insta360 has spent more energy on meeting the basic application requirements of vertical scenarios, including some invisible safety requirements, such as the problem of sound recording during high - speed driving and the problem of underwater hovering.
"At this point, we think that many of these types of needs have been mostly 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 competition with DJI and GoPro through the differentiation of panoramic technology. In the action camera field, it achieved an overtaking on a curve with functions such as AI intelligent editing (FlashCut).
The early - mover advantage of products and the foresight of technology have all contributed to Insta360's success.
However, the entry of DJI and Zhimi 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 choice.
In Liu Jingkang's view, GoPro's past success has proven the rigid demand for action cameras in target scenarios, 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."