A veteran Shenzhen hardware company enters a niche market after selling millions of digital drawing tablets and generating hundreds of millions in revenue | Insight Global

Editor's Note: As globalization becomes an increasingly core strategy for Chinese companies, how to conquer the global market has become an extremely professional topic. In the process of globalization, many Chinese brands have taken the lead. In view of this, Yingke has launched the "Insight Global" column to explore the cutting - edge directions and timely opportunities for Chinese brands to go global from the perspective of brand growth and changes, providing ideas and inspiration for global players and the industry.

This is the 49th issue of our column - XPPen was founded in 2005. It focuses on the niche but clearly growing digital painting and writing field, targeting professional creators globally. With its cost - effective products, it has sold over ten million units globally and achieved hundreds of millions in revenue. This field has a high professional threshold and high user loyalty. Although it has developed for decades, with the development of cross - platform collaboration and mobile creation trends, the field is undergoing a value reconstruction centered on experience upgrading. Recently, we had a conversation with Li Yuanzhi, the general manager of Hanwang Youji.

Author | Huang Nan

Editor | Peng Xiaoqiu

In the global digital drawing tablet market, it was previously monopolized by Wacom of Japan. It wasn't until 2010 that XPPen from China began to change the situation and jumped to the second place in global sales.

The XPPen brand belongs to Hanwang Youji. Founded in 2005, it mainly provides digital painting and writing products such as drawing tablets, graphics tablets, and digital pens based on technologies like EMR electromagnetic induction, X3 intelligent chips, and digital pens.

Instead of competing for users' time in the general entertainment scenario like most tablet manufacturers, XPPen has gradually established itself and achieved continuous growth with its precise market positioning and cost - effective products.

This is a relatively niche field. The core users of digital drawing tablets are mainly professional creators such as professional illustrators, animators, and industrial designers. This group accounts for a limited proportion of the consumer user base. According to Adobe industry data, the global scale of professional digital art creators is about 12 million, accounting for only 0.3% of Internet users.

However, at the same time, this group of users is more willing to pay for high - quality products because they are extremely sensitive to device performance, use the devices frequently and for a long time. Therefore, user stickiness and brand loyalty are extremely high. Once they establish trust in a product, they rarely switch brands.

This narrow - but - deep characteristic makes it difficult for digital drawing tablets to enter the vision of mainstream capital, but it doesn't prevent it from becoming a highly valuable niche market.

According to the latest report from Technavio, the global digital drawing tablet market was worth $1.58 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to $2.43 billion by 2027, with a compound annual growth rate of 11.2%, far exceeding many traditional consumer electronics categories.

"The current market is undergoing a two - dimensional evolution. It's not just a simple product iteration but a reconstruction of the entire digital creation ecosystem," Li Yuanzhi, the general manager of Hanwang Youji, told Yingke. "On the one hand, the needs of professional creators are becoming more refined, and they have higher and higher requirements for performance such as color accuracy and pressure sensitivity. On the other hand, mobile creation is driving the development of devices towards lighter, wireless, and intelligent directions."

XPPen digital drawing tablet (Source/Enterprise)

Due to the specialized and personalized demand characteristics, digital drawing tablets cannot quickly occupy the market with a single blockbuster product like most consumer electronics products.

On the contrary, while most brands are chasing the mass market, XPPen has chosen a more patient path: building barriers with professionalism and defining the market with segmented needs. In today's rapidly developing content creator economy, this "slow - paced business" shows lasting vitality.

From "Production Tool" to Consumer - Grade Product

The digital drawing tablet is not an emerging category that suddenly boomed. Before the global sales of XPPen's graphics tablets and drawing tablets exceeded 10 million units in 2023, the brand had been deeply operating in the Japanese market for nearly 20 years.

In the early days, drawing tablets were more like "accessory parts" of computers. They needed to be connected to computers via cables, and the image processing ability was provided by the computer's computing power. Most of the screen sizes were within 10 inches. Not only were the stroke accuracy and response speed difficult to meet the needs of professional creation, but they also relied on specific software platforms (limited by software ecosystem and other technologies). The device needed to collaborate with the system and software to create.

Therefore, in the past, the core users of drawing tablets were concentrated in a few professional design institutions, using them only as production tools for inputting paintings, for simple graphic drawing and sketching. The general public's awareness was not high.

It wasn't until after 2010 that technological advancements in semiconductor design capabilities and manufacturing processes brought an increase in the resolution of drawing tablet screens, reaching 1080P, and the pressure sensitivity level jumped to 1024 levels, which could control the thickness and shade of drawn lines, presenting obvious and delicate changes, meeting the needs of most painting, sketching, and illustration enthusiasts and novice professional creators.

During the same period, the EMR electromagnetic induction technology began to be popularized, allowing devices to get rid of the dependence on wired connections and improving portability. In addition, software manufacturers such as Adobe optimized functions for drawing tablets, further enriching the device's usage scenarios and creative possibilities.

XPPen began to rise during this period. By then, XPPen had already accumulated a certain number of loyal users, especially establishing initial brand recognition among Japanese creators. The technological evolution and process optimization enabled Li Yuanzhi and his team to notice the possibility of digital drawing penetrating from professional vertical fields such as illustrators and animators to the consumer - grade market.

XPPen at an overseas exhibition (Source/Enterprise)

The accuracy, pen - following ability, and holding feel of digital drawing tablets directly affect the final expressiveness of users' creative works. To get infinitely close to the painting effect of traditional paper - based creation, the most crucial thing is to solve the unique technical bottlenecks of digital creation. It is necessary to achieve real - time pen - following with extremely low latency, prevent line breaks or jitters, and at the same time, restore the frictional damping of real pen strokes on the surface of screens made of different materials.

To break through these experience bottlenecks, enterprises must provide a systematic solution for the coordination and interconnection of the "pen - core - screen". Li Yuanzhi told Yingke that the primary focus of product R & D lies in the sensitivity, integration, and reliability of signal processing by the digital pen and the carrier chip.

Different from the capacitive pen or analog pen solutions commonly adopted by most enterprises, XPPen has self - developed a dedicated chip for pen - touch interaction. This chip is like a highly sensitive "nerve center". It can accurately capture millimeter - level movements and gram - level pressure changes, while filtering out most environmental electromagnetic interference, ensuring the stability and accuracy of pen strokes from the signal source.

For example, when the screen refreshes, there will be electronic fluctuations, interference waves from nearby mobile phones or watches. The "noise - reduction ability" of the chip allows users to keep the pen strokes stable even when multiple electronic devices are running synchronously, with no line skipping and no pen - touch interruption during fast writing.

In actual use, the display screen is another key accessory that affects users' creative feel and visual experience. XPPen has installed paper - like films on many of its drawing tablet products. Based on AG nano - etching technology, it can simulate the frictional damping of high - grade paper, reducing the "slipping" phenomenon caused by the over - smooth surface of some ordinary screens. The controllability of line drawing is better, and it is closer to the painting texture of traditional paper and pen. At the same time, combined with the diffuse reflection characteristics of the paper - like film, it can also effectively reduce screen reflection and glare interference, ensuring that users can see the details of the picture in various lighting environments.

Currently, XPPen has launched multiple products such as the Artist series and Artist Pro series of drawing tablets, the Deco series and Deco Pro series of graphics tablets, and the Magic series of drawing tablets. The prices of drawing tablets range from $150 to $1500 (equivalent to about 1000 - 10000 RMB), covering multiple price segments and meeting the diverse needs of different user groups, from individual creators and digital painting enthusiasts to professional designers and illustrators.

XPPen product series (Source/Enterprise)

Since its establishment, XPPen has entered the Asia - Pacific markets such as Japan, Hong Kong (China), South Korea, and Indonesia as its entry points. Currently, its products have entered 163 countries and regions and are continuously expanding into the European and American markets. Yingke learned that XPPen's annual revenue reaches hundreds of millions, with cumulative sales exceeding ten million units. It ranks second in the global market share and first in some regions such as France, Russia, and India.

Meeting Personalized Needs with Intelligence

Although the digital drawing tablet has developed for decades and the user base is relatively stable, this field is undergoing a value reconstruction centered on experience upgrading.

With the influx of different user groups, XPPen has found that their expectations for products also show significant differences. For example, professional creators attach more importance to the real - feel of pen strokes, the fineness of pressure sensitivity, and the color performance of the screen, pursuing the ultimate painting experience. Ordinary users and cross - field content creators are more concerned about the cost - effectiveness, ease of use, cross - platform compatibility, and the perfection of the supporting software ecosystem of products.

According to XPPen's internal market research, on the one hand, with the popularization of digital creation and the normalization of remote collaboration, the time users spend using devices has increased, and the application scenarios have expanded significantly. Whether a single product can continuously and stably meet diverse needs has become crucial. On the other hand, in the context of mobile office and cross - platform operation becoming the mainstream, the traditional multi - device collaboration model is not only costly but also brings problems such as data isolation and fragmented experience.

"The maturity of algorithms such as AI has also made users no longer satisfied with simple function optimization and performance stacking. Instead, they hope that products have the ability to perceive, understand, and predict, truly realizing an integrated experience of 'lightweight, intelligent, and fully compatible'," Li Yuanzhi said.

For users, the ideal usage experience is becoming clearer: they expect to use a single drawing tablet or tablet device, which can maintain reliable performance during long - term use and avoid the cumbersome operation of switching between multiple devices. At the same time, this device had better have some "intelligent" features, which can adapt to different usage scenarios, seamlessly connect with the software ecosystem, and improve the fluency of creation or work through user - friendly function design.

XPPen digital drawing tablet (Source/Enterprise)

Based on these observations, on the basis of continuing its pen - touch response and display performance, XPPen will focus on providing a highly integrated and intelligent collaborative integrated creation experience in the subsequent product iterations.

In terms of AI technology planning, XPPen is independently developing an intelligent creation system. This tool is not just a simple connection to large models but can understand users' pen - touch intentions in real - time, analyze the composition context, and dynamically generate highly personalized visual suggestions based on users' style preferences and creation history.

In addition, in terms of copyright protection, which is most important to creators, XPPen will also launch a creative digital copyright platform. For example, it will encrypt and record the creation process, ensuring that the creation process is traceable and the ownership is clear, avoiding the problem of unclear ownership caused by the unauthorized leakage of works.

Li Yuanzhi told Yingke that in addition to optimizing intelligent functions, XPPen will also make corresponding adjustments to product design for users in different regions. For example, East Asian users prefer small and delicate appearances, while European and American users tend to like heavy and stable structures and simple styles. Therefore, its products can be customized in terms of form and color schemes regionally, matching the preferences of local markets through a differentiated SKU strategy.

To ensure supply efficiency, XPPen has deployed overseas warehouses in multiple regions globally. Online, in addition to its independent website, it has entered Amazon and mainstream local e - commerce platforms in various regions, including some small - language markets, ensuring that e - commerce orders can be quickly delivered to users and providing full - link services such as pre - sales consultation and after - sales support. Offline, it further promotes channel sales conversion through various touchpoints such as anime exhibitions, training bases, 3C stores, and brand - name stores.

XPPen digital drawing tablet (Source/Enterprise)

The user base is relatively concentrated and limited, but they are willing to pay for professionalism and quality. XPPen has not blindly chased the blockbuster logic of the mass market. Instead, it has chosen to deeply cultivate the creator economy, establishing a strong symbiotic relationship with users by continuously iterating professional products, building content communities, and improving the service system.

When the performance of hardware products gradually converges, what really builds the brand barrier is whether it can continuously provide users with a reliable, efficient, and emotionally resonant creative experience.

It can be seen that XPPen's development path represents the growth logic of a type of focused hardware enterprise - the core competitive advantage does not only come from the hardware parameters themselves but lies in the continuous response to the in - depth needs of vertical user groups and the connection ability to evolve together with the user's creative ecosystem.