Source | YuanMeiHui

A domestic camera brand that has turned a "sunset industry" into a hit is just one step away from listing.

On June 6, Insta360 Innovations Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Insta360") announced the results of its IPO on the STAR Market, with an issue price of 47.27 yuan per share, an issue volume of 41 million shares, and total fund-raising amount and net fund-raising amount of 1.94 billion yuan and 1.75 billion yuan, respectively.

The prospectus shows that the company's fund-raising is mainly used for the construction of a smart imaging equipment production base and the Insta360 Innovation Shenzhen R&D Center, with a proposed fund-raising amount of approximately 460 million yuan.

Looking back at Insta360's IPO journey, it can be described as a "marathon".

In July 2020, Insta360 submitted its IPO application and was accepted for listing in October of the same year; after entering the "submitted for registration" status in January 2022, the listing process stalled for a time.

In the second half of 2024, Insta360 founder Liu Jingkang posted a long article on his WeChat Moments, revealing the company's IPO dilemma: "All salaries are used to repay interest", "I have not received any regulatory advice to withdraw, I don't ask for approval, I only ask for fair characterization", "Sensitive shareholders are not in the review post...cleaned up a year and a half ago".

Screenshot from the internet

This post-90s entrepreneur, in an almost tragic manner, made public the controversy over shareholder identity in the company's five-year journey to an IPO.

At the end of 2024, after Insta360 resubmitted relevant financial information, the listing process returned to normal.

In terms of company performance and market share, Insta360 can be considered "high-quality", and in the current era of smartphones, the traditional camera business has been regarded as a "sunset industry". Against this backdrop, Insta360, with innovative offerings such as panoramic cameras and action cameras, has torn open a new development path while also falling into new disputes.

01

Popular Overseas

"Outperforming GoPro" is perhaps a label that Insta360 is quite proud of.

In the major event reminders of Insta360's prospectus, the risk of "involvement in the U.S. 337 investigation and related litigation" is placed first. This risk indicates that in the U.S. market, the local brand GoPro accused Insta360 and its subsidiaries of infringing on related products and filed a 337 investigation application.

As of the signing date of the prospectus, the investigation is still ongoing.

In recent years, with the rise of domestic smart imaging brands such as Insta360 and DJI, the long-standing dominance of foreign giants such as GoPro and Ricoh in the panoramic camera and action camera markets has been broken, which has also attracted the high attention and "special care" of overseas giants.

Frost & Sullivan data shows that in 2023, Insta360's brand "Insta360" had a global market share of 67.2% for panoramic cameras, ranking first; followed by Ricoh and GoPro with market shares of 12.4% and 9.2%, respectively.

This is the sixth consecutive year that Insta360 has taken the "global number one" spot in this market, and this figure is still "growing wildly" - it is expected to reach 81.7% in 2024.

In other words, 8 out of every 10 panoramic cameras sold globally come from Insta360. This has also made Insta360 a "favorite" of overseas tech enthusiasts.

According to comprehensive reports, on April 22 (local time in the U.S.), in order to snap up Insta360's newly released Insta360 X5 panoramic camera, overseas users queued up for hundreds of meters outside New York's Grand Central Station. The event started at 9 a.m. that day, but some people had arrived at 3 a.m. to queue up.

Insta360's popularity overseas is also reflected in its performance.

Financial report data shows that from 2021 to the first half of 2024 (hereinafter referred to as the "reporting period"), Insta360 achieved revenue of 1.328 billion yuan, 2.041 billion yuan, 3.636 billion yuan, and 2.428 billion yuan; net profit attributable to shareholders was 266 million yuan, 407 million yuan, 830 million yuan, and 518 million yuan, respectively. Among them, overseas sales revenue was 934 million yuan, 1.596 billion yuan, 2.903 billion yuan, and 1.842 billion yuan, accounting for 71.17%, 79.43%, 80.83%, and 76.52% of main business revenue, respectively.

Image source: Insta360 prospectus

From a product perspective, consumer-grade smart imaging equipment is the main revenue driver for Insta360. During the reporting period, the revenue of this business accounted for 82.99%, 84.81%, 87.18%, and 85.35% of the company's total revenue for the period.

Among them, consumer-grade smart imaging equipment products are divided into the ONE X series, GO series, ONE R series, and Ace series, and the ONE X series has carried half of the business during the reporting period.

Image source: Insta360 prospectus

02

Hard to Find

Panoramic cameras have encountered a "buying frenzy" overseas, and Insta360's action cameras have also been "sold out" domestically.

Recently, Insta360's Insta360 Ace Pro 2 action camera has sparked heated discussions on the Xiaohongshu platform due to "stockouts" and "difficulty in snapping up". Due to the unavailability, some netizens have sought online advice on snapping up experience, and some have even said, "Insta360, if you don't restock soon, I'll really buy DJI's."

Screenshot from Xiaohongshu

On Insta360's JD self-operated store, the aforementioned product is currently still out of stock.

It is understood that the Insta360 Ace Pro 2 was released on October 22, 2024, and is an all-in-one wide-angle action camera. In addition to being equipped with a 1/1.3-inch 8K sensor and a Leica SUMMARIT lens, this product is also the first action camera on the market to adopt an AI dual-chip, with a price range of 2000 to 4000 yuan.

Image source: JD platform

The popularity of this product has also contributed considerable revenue to Insta360. Financial report data shows that as of now, Insta360's Ace series has launched two generations of products, with revenue soaring from 97 million yuan in 2023 to 276 million yuan in the first half of 2024.

However, the delayed restocking of the Insta360 Ace Pro 2 has also been questioned by users as "hunger marketing".

Before this product, DJI's pocket gimbal camera pocket3 also experienced a shortage.

Data from Magic Insight shows that from its November 2023 launch to October 2024, DJI Pocket3 sold 124 million yuan on Taobao and Tmall platforms, ranking first in the category of ordinary digital cameras on these platforms, far exceeding the combined sales of Insta360 GO 3s, which ranked second at the time, and Sony ZV-1, which ranked third.

On Xiaohongshu, there are over 1 million posts discussing DJI Pocket3, with over 1 billion views, demonstrating its popularity. However, starting in late May 2025, some Xiaohongshu users said that pocket3 had started to be heavily stocked. Currently, on the JD official platform, the product is also shown as available for sale.

YuanMeiHui noticed that during the period when DJI Pocket3 was hard to find, Insta360's Insta 360 Flow Pro gimbal product was regarded by the market as a "flat replacement for Pocket3". In terms of price, this product is less than 1000 yuan, which is indeed much cheaper than the Pocket3, which costs more than 3000 yuan.

It's not just gimbal products; there are also many discussions about "choosing DJI or Insta360" in action camera products. Moreover, from the sales ranking, the two are neck and neck. Frost & Sullivan data shows that in 2023, Insta360 ranked second in global action camera sales, just behind GoPro, with DJI ranking third.

In addition to the above two products, DJI is also interested in panoramic cameras. According to media reports, DJI plans to launch its first consumer-grade panoramic camera, the DJI Osmo 360, in July 2025.

In other words, the competition between DJI and Insta360 may extend from action cameras to panoramic cameras. Based on this, some market voices believe that there will inevitably be a battle between the two.

Regarding market competition with DJI, YuanMeiHui sent an inquiry email to Insta360, but did not receive a reply as of press time.

03

Scene Competition

In an era of scarce attention, imaging equipment has long surpassed its physical attributes and evolved into a foundry for social currency. Every time the shutter is pressed, it is a user's identity verification submitted to a specific circle; every video shared is a secondary dissemination of personal symbols in the digital world.

Relying on precise insights into new-generation users, domestic smart imaging giants bypass traditional parameter comparisons and turn to the competition for "the right to define users' lifestyles". This is true for both Insta360 and DJI, which are performing distinctly different "alchemy" centered around the construction of social ecology.

Insta360 creates a technology-worshipping community through the "Content Co-creation Plan". "We have a very benign user co-creation mechanism. If we find suitable partners and user groups, these users themselves can help us with brand promotion." Previously, Max Richter, vice president of marketing at Insta360, publicly discussed the co-creation mechanism.

Max Richter believes that the core of the overseas market is to understand consumers and leverage their own UGC content advantages.

For example, in 2021, a Japanese KOL came up with the idea of holding Insta360's camera in his mouth to film himself running, resulting in a very interesting "Attack on Titan" effect that sparked a lot of imitation on social media.

Comprehensive data shows that global users have uploaded over 270 million video content related to extreme sports such as skiing, parachuting, and diving using Insta360. In 2024, Insta360 also launched the #insta360challenge hashtag, encouraging users to share their works and giving away free accessories, with over 230 million views related to the hashtag.

This mechanism that encourages extreme creation has allowed Insta360 users to form a unique subculture, where they are not only equipment users but also participants in technological experiments.

DJI, on the other hand, relies on its "sky-ground" ecological matrix to build a full-scene imaging empire. At the same time, DJI is also making efforts in content, such as leveraging localized content to tap into the sinking market in Southeast Asia - a case video of Filipino farmers using agricultural drones to spray pesticides, with real data showing a "40% cost reduction", resonated with users, and the topic DJIFarmer received over 120 million views.

From the ecological matrix to content localization, this ecological bundling strategy has resulted in a higher repurchase rate of DJI users' equipment.

In the wave of the creator economy, KOLs have become amplifiers of product value and prophets of demand trends. The competition between Insta360 and DJI for this strategic resource is essentially an early layout for future market discourse power.

Now, as Insta360 is about to knock on the door of the STAR Market, this years-long C-end covert war has also ushered in a new milestone. However, listing is not the end, but the starting point of an even more brutal war. For Insta360, how to transform technological advantages into lifestyle advantages will determine whether it can break out of the inherent label of a "geek brand"; for DJI, how to find a balance between the scale effect of the mass market and the personalized needs of high-end users is crucial to the sustainable development of its ecological empire.

The ultimate significance of this competition may have long surpassed the commercial victory or defeat of the two companies. It is driving the entire smart imaging industry to transform from "hardware stacking" to "scenario empowerment" and from "functional satisfaction" to "emotional resonance".

And the ultimate beneficiaries of this revolution will be every ordinary person who uses images to record life and express themselves. They are both spectators and creators of this change.

Some images are quoted from the internet. Please inform us for deletion if there is any infringement.