Insta360: how it grew without chasing the "next big thing" - China New Consumption #4
While others fought over price, Insta360 built a market from scratch
While investors continue to question the strength of Chinese consumption amid lingering deflationary pressures, it's ironic that some of the best-performing stocks in the past year have been in so-called “new consumption” — discretionary consumer brands that resonate deeply with Gen Z and younger demographics.
One thing is clear: young Chinese never stopped spending on discretionary items, even amid a slow-growing economy — it's just none of it is reflected in the official GDP or aggregate retail sales data.
This is exactly why “new consumption” deserves attention — not as a macro beta play, but as a hunt for alpha. And that’s what this newsletter series is about.
If you've been paying attention to what's happening in China this year, you'll notice a striking contrast.
On one hand, the deflation continues to worsen the problem of "involution" — the destructive competition and endless price wars driven by oversupply and lack of differentiation. This is playing out across many sectors: EVs, heavy industries, and even services, such as the infamous price wars among food delivery platforms that have recently begun slashing prices just to stay in the game.
But on the other hand, several discretionary consumption brands have not only thrived but also gained international recognition.
What sets these outperformers apart is that they don't compete in existing categories. Instead, they create entirely new ones. Take Laopu Gold or Pop Mart, which I've written about in detail in previous newsletters, as examples — these are the kinds of companies that leave analysts saying, "I can't explain it in purely financial terms, but clearly something is working."
While traditional industries are stuck in the cycle of copying "what already works", these rising brands succeed by inventing new market segments — new types of products, services, or experiences that are hard to compare easily. And that's where the future of China's consumer market lies.
Today's story is about Insta360, a consumer tech company founded in 2014 in Shenzhen that's quietly becoming one of China's most successful global brands. Instead of joining the price wars in the saturated consumer electronics market, Insta360 carved out a niche by focusing on 360-degree cameras and volgging gear. But the path was far from straightforward. With GoPro already dominating the action camera space, Insta360 had to go through trial and error to find its own position — in a sense, it invented a market that didn't exist before.
Insta360 went public this June, and according to the data we track, its online sales remain strong. It's not hard to imagine that the IPO is just a new beginning.
Insta360 didn't stop at the domestic market: it went global early. Over 70% of its revenue now comes from overseas markets, including the US, Europe, and Japan.
Its founder, Liu Jingkang, a 90s born entrepreneur who didn't graduate from one of China's elite 985 universities (China's Ivy League equivalents), once said that he was inspired by Apple's philosophy: "Make a good product, and users will come". That mindset helped Insta360 avoid the fate of many Chinese companies that rely only on subsidies or low prices to survive.
Today's story is translated from the article by 36Kr. You will be inpsired by Liu's story and how his "YOLO" (You only live once) mindset shaped not only Insta360's products, but also its team culture — and more broadly, how it reflects how a younger generation of Chinese entreprenerus who are redefining what makes a company "cool" beyond just making money.
Below is Baiguan's translation of the original article, Insta360’s 285% IPO surge: how it grew without chasing the "next big thing"
*Disclaimer: This newsletter post is not sponsored by Insta360.
After more than four years navigating the IPO process, Insta360—formally known as Arashi Vision—made its debut on the STAR Market on June 11. At the listing ceremony, 34-year-old founder Liu Jingkang skipped the traditional mallet. Instead, he raised the company’s latest panoramic camera—the Insta360 X5, released just two months earlier—and struck the IPO gong with it, signaling both market recognition and the start of a new chapter.
Even his take on ringing the bell reflected the brand’s slogan: Think Bold.
This was classic Liu Jingkang—born in 1991 and known for his playful, imaginative streak. Since founding Insta360 in 2015, he’s infused the brand with a creative spirit that’s equal parts tech and fun.
But behind the flair is a solid business: Insta360 now holds the top spot globally in panoramic cameras, commanding a 67% market share in 2023. In action cameras, it ranks second only to the U.S. veteran GoPro.
According to the company’s prospectus, Insta360 maintained gross margins above 50% from 2022 through Q1 2024—nearly twice the average of companies in the “branded consumer electronics” category under China’s Shenwan A-share industry index. That’s also significantly higher than GoPro’s 2023 gross margin of around 34%.
In 2023, revenue hit RMB 5.6 billion (approx. $770 million), marking year-over-year growth of over 50%. Net profit came in close to RMB 1 billion ($137 million). The company priced its IPO at RMB 47.27 per share. It opened at RMB 182—an eye-popping 285% jump—pushing Insta360’s market capitalization past RMB 70 billion ($9.6 billion).
Behind the high margins, rapid growth, and category leadership lies a refreshingly grounded approach: Insta360 grew not by chasing trends or capitalizing on market hype, but by returning to first principles—identifying unmet user needs.
Panoramic action cameras were far from mainstream when Insta360 entered the space. GoPro’s growth had already begun to slow, and there was little momentum for newcomers to ride. Liu Jingkang wasn’t searching for a blue ocean. Instead, he went into a crowded market with a simple thesis: focus on building better products by pinpointing—and addressing—pain points others had overlooked.
That’s how Insta360’s signature product lines—the X series of panoramic action cameras and the thumb-sized GO series—came into being. Both have since become core pillars of the company’s imaging lineup.
Since its launch in 2018, the X series has captured everything from sweeping aerial landscapes with eagles in flight to rare cosmic vistas aboard the Long March 2D rocket, delivering a frame where Earth meets the Milky Way.
Insta360’s users are as diverse as the footage they capture—from professional filmmakers like “Storm Chaser Tim,” to cycling vloggers, extreme sports athletes, and everyday parents and pet owners documenting life’s quieter moments. One recent user even made headlines: the paraglider Peng Yujiang was swept up to an altitude of over 8,500 meters in –40°C conditions. It was the Insta360 X2 that bore witness, capturing proof of the ordeal from start to finish.
At the end of 2023, Insta360 launched the Ace series—its first wide-angle action cameras—taking direct aim at GoPro’s flagship Hero line and DJI’s Action series. The move signaled a shift: from niche innovation to head-on competition with global incumbents.
Liu once preferred tinkering over managing—his phone was packed with pages of product ideas, an endless scroll of creativity. But today, his focus has shifted. As Insta360 scales into a multi-product company, Liu is now building a matrixed organization capable of navigating more complex R&D pipelines, doubling down on product-market fit and out-innovating increasingly powerful rivals.
It marks a fundamental evolution: from chief product tinkerer to architect of organizational scale. When the Ace Pro 2 Street Kit launched in March this year, Liu didn’t hear about it until just before release—a sharp contrast from five years ago, when he would help engineers screw prototypes together by hand.
It was a coming-of-age moment—not just for Liu as a founder, but for Insta360 as a company. The startup spirit hadn’t disappeared, but it was evolving—signaling the end of its adolescence, and the beginning of a more mature, scalable phase.
Since early 2023, we’ve conducted multiple interviews with Liu Jingkang and his team—chronicling the story of a company that is both bold and grounded, and whose rise didn’t rely on viral trends or market tailwinds.
An unconventional start: From zero to a global leader in panoramic cameras—all in three years
Over a decade ago, while still an undergrad at Nanjing University, Liu gained early notoriety as something of a tech prodigy. He once “hacked” into the school’s system to collect 7,000 student ID photos—then used facial averaging to generate “standard faces” for each department. In another instance, he claimed to have identified the phone number of cybersecurity mogul Zhou Hongyi simply by decoding keypad tones.
Liu’s digital escapades caught the eye of IDG Capital. After tracking down his contact, IDG partner Tong Chen met Liu in Nanjing. “The product back then had little commercial viability,” Tong recalled. “There were only six people, mostly part-timers. JK (Liu) hadn’t even graduated yet.” Still, IDG decided to invest—not in a product, but in a person. “Liu Jingkang is one of the most talented product managers I’ve ever met,” Tong said. By the time Insta360 went public, IDG had become its largest external shareholder.
In Insta360’s formative years, Liu played the role of “super product manager,” leading the charge to make the company a global leader in panoramic cameras. That foundation remains solid: in 2023 alone, the X series panoramic action cameras generated RMB 2.92 billion ($400 million) in sales—accounting for over 52% of total revenue.
Unlike most startup success stories, Insta360’s breakout product—the panoramic action camera—wasn’t born from a hot new trend or untapped market.
Instead, the company entered a highly competitive space. In panoramic cameras, giants like Samsung and Ricoh already held dominant shares; in action cameras, the field was led by GoPro—a 20-year-old U.S. brand generating over $1 billion in annual revenue.
Insta360 was also serving a well-established demand: capturing and sharing life and sport. GoPro had benefited from the early boom of social platforms like Instagram, but by the time Insta360 launched its core products in 2018, the mobile internet’s explosive growth phase had already peaked.
So, how do you carve a path in a market that looks saturated? Liu Jingkang later described Insta360’s breakthrough as a form of “hunter’s logic”: enter crowded, vertical markets, identify unmet needs others have overlooked, and go straight after incumbents with sharper products.
In the broader imaging space, Insta360 used three criteria to identify its next “target”:
The market leader must enjoy gross margins of at least 50%—because real profits fuel future innovation;
Annual sales should be in the tens of billions of RMB—big enough to matter, but not so big as to attract tech giants;
Most crucially, the category must suffer from unresolved pain points—giving challengers a chance to win through superior products, not just lower prices.
“This framework only became clear in hindsight,” Liu admitted in a 2022 interview. “In the early days, what we were really doing was adapting and optimizing for specific user groups and scenarios in the sports space—less strategy, more instinct.”
Before that, Insta360’s first panoramic camera—Nano, launched in 2016—had a promising start. It solved a key pain point plaguing competitors like Samsung and Ricoh: slow data transfer. The product made a splash at CES 2016 and was praised as “amazing” by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. It drew a flood of overseas distributors and helped Insta360 go from zero to RMB 20 million in sales within a month.
Yet Nano, like other panoramic cameras at the time, failed to answer a critical question: Who exactly were the users, and what scenarios were they buying it for? Without that clarity, growth quickly lost steam.
“At that time, only Ricoh, Vuze, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Insta360 were still seriously making panoramic cameras,” recalled a manager at a camera OEM. “It was a tiny market.”
2017 was a difficult year for Insta360: product momentum had stalled, funding was uncertain, and the company was at its most fragile. But Liu Jingkang spotted a turning point in the user group for Nano—where several users were sharing footage of skiing, cycling, and downhill racing, all captured on the device.
Liu was puzzled: Nano wasn’t built for action sports. It lacked basics like waterproofing or swappable batteries. So why were athletes using it?
Through user feedback, the answer emerged: “shoot first, frame later.” Traditional action cameras use wide-angle lenses, requiring athletes to actively frame shots mid-motion.
Panoramic cameras like Nano, however, allowed users to capture everything first—and handle framing during post-production. That made them ideal for extreme sports, where focus and hands-free operation matter most.
That insight led to a new hybrid category: cameras that were both panoramic and action-ready. In 2017, Insta360 launched Insta ONE, its first panoramic camera designed for sports users. A year later, it followed up with what would become its flagship panoramic line: the X series.
“At the time, we were really the only ones doing this,” Liu later recalled. “GoPro made action cameras, but they weren’t panoramic. Samsung and Ricoh made panoramic cameras, but they weren’t designed for action.”
By 2018, just four years after its founding and one year after launching Insta ONE, Insta360 had overtaken both Samsung and Ricoh to become the global leader in panoramic camera shipments—a title it still holds today.
By targeting action sports users, the company broke out of the narrow confines of panoramic cameras and, true to its “hunter” ethos, carved its way into the broader action camera market.
Between 2018 and 2020, Insta360’s revenue surged from RMB 258 million to RMB 850 million—a 229% increase.
In contrast, former category leader GoPro saw a 22% decline in revenue over the same period, falling from $1.15 billion to $892 million. According to Insta360’s prospectus, the company had become the world’s No. 2 action camera brand by market share—just behind GoPro. By Q1 2024, Insta360’s revenue (RMB 1.355 billion) had overtaken GoPro’s ($133 million), which has now posted four consecutive years of declining sales.
Looking back, the success of Insta360’s “hunter strategy” hinged on two core principles: First, a relentless focus on identifying unresolved user pain points; and second, outperforming competitors in solving them.
When mapping user needs across niche scenarios, Insta360 classifies them into two types:
common and clearly articulated by users themselves, and
equally common, but often subconscious—needs users haven’t yet realized they have.
Tapping into these subconscious needs often leads to breakthrough innovation and deeper differentiation.
A textbook example: the invisible selfie stick. Using stitching algorithms, Insta360’s panoramic cameras can erase the selfie stick from the frame—creating the illusion of a floating, third-person perspective. “It’s a powerful hook for consumers,” noted CTO Chen Junchi. The invisible selfie stick quickly became a signature feature among outdoor sports creators.
The “shoot first, frame later” model intrinsic to panoramic cameras also unlocked another long-term user demand: Simplified, efficient, and automated editing.
Though Insta360 is often seen as a hardware company, one of its true competitive advantages lies in software—particularly editing. Its companion app, Insta360 Studio, has been continuously upgraded to deliver smarter, more intuitive editing workflows—an area Liu Jingkang knows intimately. He majored in computer software at Nanjing University.
Solving these pain points requires mastery of a long and complex tech stack—spanning hardware design, optics, software, image processing, and increasingly, AI. Insta360 began investing in AI as early as 2018, initially to improve the capture-to-share flow for panoramic footage.
More recently, its R&D has focused on automating the editing of panoramic video. Overseas, there’s an entire cottage industry charging tens of dollars to manually edit GoPro videos.
Insta360, by contrast, has rolled out features like AI Quick Edit and Auto Tracking—tools aimed at replacing human editors altogether. Its long-term vision? To build editing software that can match the skills of a professional video editor.
After establishing dominance in panoramic action cameras, Insta360 continued its “hunter” approach—branching into new product categories with the same demand-driven strategy.
In 2019, Insta360 launched its GO series—tiny “thumb cameras” inspired by a basketball video game. Liu originally envisioned a jersey embedded with a panoramic camera. Players could press a button to livestream the game from a first-person perspective, and when the battery ran out, they’d simply change into another shirt.
The GO camera is just one-third the size of a traditional GoPro and can be worn completely hands-free—ideal for capturing first-person footage. Users began producing viral content like “a day in the life of a baby” or “through a kitten’s eyes,” helping Insta360 move beyond sports into two high-growth markets: parenting and pet content. In 2023, the GO series generated more than RMB 900 million in sales—over 16% of Insta360’s total revenue.
In 2022, Insta360 expanded beyond the consumer market and entered the B2B space with a line of video conferencing cameras. While most competitors in this category sold devices for around $30, Insta360 positioned its product at $300—and still managed to break into the top three bestsellers on Amazon North America.
“Our competitors upgrade like squeezing toothpaste. We go from slow trains to high-speed rail,” said one Insta360 overseas sales manager. This commitment to leapfrog innovation has helped the company avoid the trap of incremental, copycat competition.
GoPro’s missteps during this period created openings for challengers like Insta360. The company had overinvested in media ventures and allowed its product line to grow unwieldy. According to Frost & Sullivan, GoPro’s market share in action cameras fell to 21% by 2019—half of what it was when the company went public in 2014.
By 2023, Insta360’s product expansion entered a new phase—marked by head-to-head battles with major rivals.
Going head-to-head with GoPro and DJI
In November 2023, Insta360 officially launched the Ace series—its first wide-angle action camera lineup, designed for the most mainstream and competitive segment of the market.