Produced by Leadar Finance, Text by Zhou Hui, Edited by Shen Hai

On October 23, Insta360 experienced a much-anticipated surge, with its stock price soaring by 8.85% to close at 105.89 yuan, giving it a market capitalization of 42.46 billion yuan.

On September 3, 2025, Insta360 reached a trading high of 377.04 yuan. Compared to this peak, the company's market value has since diminished by 108.731 billion yuan.

The significant decline in Insta360's market value is underpinned by a four-quarter consecutive drop in net profit.

Moreover, in the global panoramic and action camera market, Insta360 faces fierce competition from DJI and has even been embroiled in legal disputes with the latter.

Net Profit Shifts from Robust Growth to Losses

According to Tianyancha data, Insta360, previously known as Shenzhen Lanfeng Chuangshi Network Technology Co., Ltd., was established in 2015 and completed its IPO in June 2025.

Data from the company's official website reveals that from 2022 to 2024, Insta360's revenue was 2.041 billion yuan, 3.636 billion yuan, and 5.574 billion yuan, respectively, with a compound annual growth rate of 65.25%. During the same period, net profit excluding non-recurring gains and losses rose from 381 million yuan to 946 million yuan. In the first quarter of 2025, this growth trend persisted, with revenue reaching 1.355 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 40.7%.

Despite maintaining high revenue growth post-IPO, Insta360's net profit has seen a notable decline.

On the evening of October 27, 2025, Insta360's third-quarter report for the year revealed revenue of 2.940 billion yuan for the third quarter, a year-on-year increase of 92.64%. For the first three quarters of 2025, cumulative revenue reached 6.611 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 67.18%, continuing the strong growth momentum observed in the semi-annual report.

The financial report highlighted that the increase in operating revenue was primarily due to continuous market expansion, the launch of new products, and the expansion of online and offline sales.

Leadar Finance noted that during the 2025 "Double 11" shopping festival, Insta360 secured the top spot in panoramic camera sales on Tmall and led the action camera category, outperforming DJI and GoPro.

Buoyed by high revenue growth, on October 24, 2025, Programmer's Day, Insta360 once again distributed 21 gold keycaps as rewards to employees. The heaviest gold spacebar weighed 35.02 grams and was valued at nearly 40,000 yuan.

Notably, this marked the fourth consecutive year Insta360 had conducted this activity, with a cumulative total of 55 keycaps distributed. The value of the first batch of keycaps has also increased due to rising gold prices.

At that time, an Insta360 representative told the media that as an imaging technology company, Insta360's R&D and technical personnel constitute 57.68% of its workforce. The keyboard is the core production tool for R&D personnel, and the gold keycaps serve as a tribute to them, symbolizing that every keystroke "turns stone into gold" and every line of code is "worth a thousand words." In addition to the gold keycaps, all R&D personnel receive a health-boosting holiday gift.

Regarding the distribution of gold rewards, Insta360 founder Liu Jingkang once explained internally that gold was chosen for its stability, just as talent is the most solid foundation for a technology company.

However, the company's high revenue growth has not translated into synchronous profit growth.

In the third quarter of 2025, Insta360's net profit attributable to shareholders was 272 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 15.90%, contrasting sharply with the 92.64% year-on-year increase in revenue.

For the first three quarters of the year, Insta360's cumulative net profit attributable to shareholders was 792 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.95%.

Subsequently, Insta360's revenue and profit continued to diverge. Financial data shows that from the fourth quarter of 2025 to the second quarter of the following year, the company's revenue was 3.13 billion yuan, 2.481 billion yuan, and 3.035 billion yuan, respectively, with year-on-year increases of 93.28%, 83.11%, and 31.08%. During the same period, net profit was 137 million yuan, 85 million yuan, and -54 million yuan, respectively, with year-on-year growth rates of -10.3%, -52.02%, and -115.79%.

In the first half of the following year, Insta360's net cash flow from operating activities was -2.761 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1245.12%.

Regarding the decline in net profit attributable to shareholders, Insta360 explained in its semi-annual report that it was primarily due to the company's proactive increase in strategic R&D investment and market expansion, leading to increased related expenses. At the same time, rising prices of storage components and intensified competition in the imaging industry market led to a decline in the company's gross profit margin.

Regarding the cash outflow from operating activities during the period, Insta360 stated that it was mainly due to the procurement of chips and other materials and the preparation of materials for new products.

Notably, concerns about Insta360's profit pressure began to surface in 2024. Data from Hithink RoyalFlush iFinD shows that in 2024, Insta360 recorded a net profit attributable to shareholders of 995 million yuan. Although this was an increase from the previous year's net profit of 830 million yuan, the growth rate had sharply decreased from 103.66% to 19.91%.

Facing Intense Competition from DJI and Others

Behind Insta360's poor performance, the company is facing intense competition from DJI.

According to data released by Jiuqian Zhongtai, in the first quarter of 2025, Insta360 held a 91% share of the global consumer panoramic camera market, maintaining this level in the first half of the year. At that time, Insta360 became synonymous with panoramic cameras.

By the end of July 2025, this landscape changed. Domestic drone giant DJI crossed over to launch its first consumer panoramic camera, the Osmo 360, targeting Insta360's flagship Insta360 X5 but priced lower and with a stronger ecosystem, quickly seizing market share.

According to Jiuqian Zhongtai data, in just one quarter, DJI's Osmo 360 went from zero to a 43% global share in the third quarter of 2025, while Insta360's share plummeted from 91% in the first quarter to 49%, losing its dominant position.

Currently, the competition between the two has extended from the market to the legal realm.

On March 23 of the following year, DJI formally sued Insta360 in the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court in Guangdong Province, involving six patent ownership disputes. Several former core R&D personnel from DJI were implicated, and the court had accepted the case. In response, Insta360 founder Liu Jingkang stated that the patents were the result of independent innovation by employees within Insta360.

It is reported that the patents involved mainly focus on key technology areas such as drone flight control, structural design, and image processing.

Subsequently, DJI and DJI Osmo were reported to have filed patent infringement lawsuits against Insta360 and its affiliated companies in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on June 10 and 11 local time.

On July 3, it was reported that DJI had filed patent infringement lawsuits against Insta360's Luna series products in multiple People's Courts across China.

What has drawn outside attention is that Insta360 has also launched counterattacks, filing patent counterclaims against DJI in the United States involving five invention patents related to gimbal cameras and panoramic cameras, covering key technologies such as gimbal stabilization algorithms, pointing control, smooth anti-shaking, motion data overlay, and panoramic video anti-shaking. At the same time, Insta360 filed requests for invalidation of related equivalent patents with the China National Intellectual Property Administration.

Insta360 has also faced patent litigation snipers from other companies. In March 2024, GoPro filed a Section 337 investigation with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), accusing Insta360 of patent infringement in an attempt to block it from the North American market.

Data from Hithink RoyalFlush iFinD shows that the vast majority of Insta360's revenue comes from overseas markets. In 2024, the proportion of revenue from outside China exceeded 70%.

In February 2026, the U.S. ITC made its latest ruling, banning the import of certain camera products from Insta360's competitor, GoPro, on the grounds of design patent infringement.

Some media commentators noted that although Insta360 stated that the ban only affected its older products, the two-year lawsuit had consumed over $10 million in legal costs, distracted management, and allowed GoPro to seize market share.

The Helmsman is a Post-90s Billionaire

The helmsman of Insta360 is post-90s billionaire Liu Jingkang.

Public information shows that Liu Jingkang, male, was born in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province, in 1991, and graduated from the School of Software at Nanjing University in 2014.

In July 2012, while still in university, Liu Jingkang created standard faces for various departments at Nanjing University using 7,000 photos of his classmates, which quickly went viral online. In August of the same year, he deciphered the phone number of 360 Group Chairman and CEO Zhou Hongyi simply by analyzing the button tones from a journalist's call to Zhou. Subsequently, both Zhou Hongyi and Li Kaifu extended job offers to him.

After graduation, Liu Jingkang devoted himself to the nascent field of virtual reality and founded Insta360 in July 2015. After the company's establishment, he established the brand slogan "Think bold" and placed R&D innovation at the core of the company's development. Liu Jingkang once clearly proposed internally the order of priorities: "employee development first, customer value second, shareholder returns third," believing that "the value of a company is determined by the sum of the values of all its employees."

On June 11, 2025, Insta360 successfully went public on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Guided by the concept of "talent first," Insta360 launched its first equity incentive plan after going public, covering 695 people, including key employees, and binding their personal interests with the company's long-term value.

To convey the concept of a healthy lifestyle to employees, Insta360 has also held the "Million Pound Weight Loss" challenge since 2022, which has been held consecutively for seven sessions to date, with cumulative bonuses distributed nearing 2 million yuan.

In addition, Insta360 has repeatedly distributed gold benefits to employees, earning it the reputation of being a "gold factory" among outsiders. An employee who has collected a "full set of gold" including wedding and childbirth gold coins stated in an interview, "I am grateful that the company has accompanied me at every important milestone in my life with gold. Some things cannot be measured by money. Although gold prices have risen, I will never cash them in."

As Insta360 has grown, Liu Jingkang has accumulated significant wealth. According to the New Fortune 500 Rich List disclosed in June of the following year, Liu Jingkang ranked 176th on the list with a net worth of 23.24 billion yuan.