# China’s Instagram Gets Ready to Go Public

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 23 Jun 2026, 19 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/b6f84b5e-2c71-4d33-9455-b4720161ac57/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

After more than a decade as a private company, Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, known internationally as RedNote, is testing China’s mood for all things tech with its plan to list in Hong Kong. On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, host K. Oanh Ha speaks with Bloomberg Intelligence’s Robert Lea about why the time may be right for an IPO and what Xiaohongshu's debut says about the future of China’s tech industry. Read more: Xiaohongshu Is Said to Ready Hong Kong IPO Filing This Month See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:09] Speaker 2: Early last year, I downloaded Shao Hongshu, the Chinese social
[0:13] Speaker 2: media app known internationally as Red Note. Back then, TikTok
[0:18] Speaker 2: was about to be banned in the US and fears
[0:20] Speaker 2: that would shut down for good sent millions of mostly
[0:24] Speaker 2: Americans looking for alternatives. Many of them landed on Shauhungshu.
[0:29] Speaker 1: Hello everybody, We're from TikTok from America, hosting my first
[0:35] Speaker 1: video to Red Note as an American TikTok refugee.
[0:38] Speaker 2: Hello everybody, And we covered the Shao Honshu craze on
[0:42] Speaker 2: The Big Take Asia at the time. But not long
[0:44] Speaker 2: after we reported the story, President Trump announced he would
[0:48] Speaker 2: delay the ban on TikTok. He ended up delaying it
[0:51] Speaker 2: several times, and most of the Americans who migrated from
[0:54] Speaker 2: TikTok to Shao Hongshu went right back. And in January
[0:58] Speaker 2: of this year, Bite Dance, TikTok parent company in China,
[1:02] Speaker 2: agreed to spin off its US operations, securing TikTok's future
[1:06] Speaker 2: in the States. T talkers, well, it's official.
[1:12] Speaker 1: President Trump just announced a US buyer for TikTok.
[1:17] Speaker 2: But the Shao Hongshu app stayed on my phone and
[1:20] Speaker 2: pretty quickly it became a part of my routine. When
[1:23] Speaker 2: I'm not hosting the show, I cover tourism for Bloomberg
[1:26] Speaker 2: and use Shao Hongshu to look for story ideas and
[1:29] Speaker 2: even help me plan trips.
[1:31] Speaker 1: It is day seven out of ten of my road
[1:33] Speaker 1: trip baron New Zealand, so I wanted to answer some
[1:35] Speaker 1: of the most commonly asked questions.
[1:37] Speaker 2: Or work on my tennis game. Okay, so today we're
[1:40] Speaker 2: going to look at it two handback hand slice, so
[1:42] Speaker 2: it's more like this Shaohongshu.
[1:44] Speaker 1: Many people compare it to Instagram or Reddit, but really
[1:49] Speaker 1: it's become the de facto search engine for many younger
[1:53] Speaker 1: people who are looking for travel tips, lifestyle hacks, restaurant recommendations,
[1:57] Speaker 1: that sort of thing.
[1:58] Speaker 2: Robert Lee leads the coverage of China's tech sector for
[2:01] Speaker 2: Bloomberg Intelligence, the company's research arm. He doesn't use the
[2:05] Speaker 2: app himself, but he has been tracking its rise.
[2:10] Speaker 1: So at the last count, it's got, in fact, probably
[2:12] Speaker 1: close to four hundred million active users, mainly within the
[2:16] Speaker 1: borders of China itself.
[2:18] Speaker 2: That's smaller than other Chinese social media apps like we Chat,
[2:22] Speaker 2: which has roughly one point four billion users. But Rob
[2:26] Speaker 2: says investors are keenly interested in Shao Hongshu because it
[2:30] Speaker 2: offers users something different from the competition.
[2:33] Speaker 1: It has an authenticity and a much much lower reliance
[2:37] Speaker 1: on these paid KOLs as they call them in China
[2:40] Speaker 1: or key opinion leaders. These are the influences of China.
[2:44] Speaker 1: They've certainly carved out a significant niche on the Chinese
[2:48] Speaker 1: social media seen, a sector which is intensely competitive.
[2:52] Speaker 2: And now, after more than a decade building its brand,
[2:56] Speaker 2: Shao Hongshu wants to turn that niche into a significant
[3:00] Speaker 2: market share. Right, No, right, shaohong Shu said to be
[3:03] Speaker 2: preparing for an IPO in Hong Kong by the end
[3:06] Speaker 2: of June. Let's bring it belong.
[3:07] Speaker 1: Once you've got that captive user base and once they're
[3:10] Speaker 1: using it very actively, their is scope to monetize in
[3:13] Speaker 1: other avenues. Four hundred million users is great, but there's
[3:17] Speaker 1: significant scope to expand that.
[3:19] Speaker 2: One reason Shao Hongshu might be eyeing a listing right
[3:23] Speaker 2: now is timing. Hong Kong's IPO market has been on
[3:27] Speaker 2: a tier. Companies have raised about twenty billion dollars so
[3:30] Speaker 2: far this year, and it's on track to hit a
[3:33] Speaker 2: six year high. A lot of that momentum is coming
[3:36] Speaker 2: from Chinese tech and AI companies hitting the market, but
[3:40] Speaker 2: Rob says shao Hongshu, with its loyal user base and
[3:44] Speaker 2: healthy profit margins, could stand out from the pack if
[3:48] Speaker 2: it goes public.
[3:49] Speaker 1: If you look at a broader China tech sector, it's
[3:52] Speaker 1: a sector that's really been plagued by issues of oversupply.
[3:55] Speaker 1: We don't have the numbers on Shao Hongshu at the moment,
[3:58] Speaker 1: but it's not to any of those negatives. And I
[4:02] Speaker 1: think this is an IPO famous last words which could
[4:06] Speaker 1: actually go down really well. It will be a breath
[4:08] Speaker 1: of fresh air.
[4:10] Speaker 2: This is the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm wanh.
[4:14] Speaker 2: Every week we take you inside some of the world's
[4:16] Speaker 2: biggest and most powerful economies in the markets, tycoons and
[4:21] Speaker 2: businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today in the show,
[4:25] Speaker 2: Shaohangshu's push to go public, why now could be the
[4:30] Speaker 2: right moment and what it says about confidence in China's
[4:34] Speaker 2: tech sector. Rob, what is Shaohangshu and how are people
[4:42] Speaker 2: using it?
[4:42] Speaker 1: So the business was founded in twenty thirteen more as
[4:46] Speaker 1: a travel recommendation site, something similar to the along the
[4:50] Speaker 1: lines of trip Advisor as it was, but it's since
[4:53] Speaker 1: evolved into i'd say China's leading lifestyle orientated platform with
[4:59] Speaker 1: a big influence on travel and lifestyle hacks and recommendations,
[5:04] Speaker 1: and it's very well positioned again with this younger, predominantly
[5:08] Speaker 1: female demographic in China, particularly as well within the more
[5:13] Speaker 1: affluent population in the Tier one cities, so largely the
[5:17] Speaker 1: big coastal cities and other southern regions and eastern regions
[5:21] Speaker 1: of China. Within that demographic, it's a ubiquitous part of
[5:25] Speaker 1: daily life and something people very actively use and rely on.
[5:30] Speaker 1: Around sixty four percent of their users of female, and
[5:33] Speaker 1: a further thirty four percent we're below the ages of
[5:37] Speaker 1: twenty five.
[5:40] Speaker 2: China's female Internet users are an in demand demographic because
[5:44] Speaker 2: they hold higher monthly spending power than the overall online population.
[5:49] Speaker 2: That's according to research published by Bloomberg Intelligence. Female users
[5:53] Speaker 2: also spend slightly more time online, close to six hours
[5:57] Speaker 2: a day, logging one hundred and seventy four hours a month.
[6:01] Speaker 2: That's compared to one hundred and sixty nine hours for men,
[6:04] Speaker 2: and Shahanshu isn't just good at driving clicks, it's good
[6:08] Speaker 2: at turning them into sales. Shah Hongshu's ad conversion rates
[6:13] Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four beat competitors across several sectors, including
[6:17] Speaker 2: beauty and health.
[6:19] Speaker 1: We're not talking about purchases costing thousands of dollars. It's
[6:23] Speaker 1: these sort of relatively small ticket items I think that
[6:26] Speaker 1: are being sold. So yeah, from an advertising point of view,
[6:29] Speaker 1: this is a really attractive demographic to try and tap into.
[6:35] Speaker 2: Rob says. One of the reasons that apps able to
[6:38] Speaker 2: capture the attention and wallets of these young people is
[6:42] Speaker 2: ironically because that sector of the population is struggling right now.
[6:47] Speaker 1: Many countries in the world feature very high housing prices
[6:50] Speaker 1: at the moment. So unless you have a wealthy family
[6:53] Speaker 1: behind you, or you're in a very wealthy job, or
[6:55] Speaker 1: you've saved up big deposit, it's quite hard to get
[6:59] Speaker 1: on the housing land. And also the job market for
[7:02] Speaker 1: younger people is quite tough at the moment. And then
[7:04] Speaker 1: we've got you know, all this external stuff, whether it's
[7:07] Speaker 1: global warning, the conflict in Iran, etc. There's perhaps a
[7:11] Speaker 1: lack of good news or whatever you want to try
[7:13] Speaker 1: and cheer yourself up. You want to focus on the
[7:16] Speaker 1: things that make you happy.
[7:18] Speaker 2: So they cheer me up. Sales purchases exactly.
[7:21] Speaker 1: No, we all need a little bit of that, But
[7:23] Speaker 1: it just so happens that Shao Hongshu is directly targeting
[7:27] Speaker 1: that demographic with a big focus on these lifestyle products.
[7:33] Speaker 2: Let's talk a bit about their financials. What do we
[7:35] Speaker 2: know about how they're doing as a company.
[7:38] Speaker 1: This is a big unknown because there are no published
[7:41] Speaker 1: quarterly results around your reports, So based on best estimates
[7:45] Speaker 1: and I do stress this as unconfirmed sources, I think
[7:48] Speaker 1: the company was due to generate net profit of around
[7:51] Speaker 1: three billion US dollars, But I think the results speak
[7:54] Speaker 1: for themselves anyway in terms of their growing presence on
[7:58] Speaker 1: the Chinese social media seen. The way that we can
[8:02] Speaker 1: monitor that indirectly is looking at more traditional platforms like
[8:06] Speaker 1: a waybar. So waybar has been around for decades, shao
[8:10] Speaker 1: Honshu has captured advertising dollars. It's been at the expense
[8:14] Speaker 1: of more traditional platforms like waybar, and if you look
[8:17] Speaker 1: at their financial performance over the last few years, it's
[8:20] Speaker 1: just flatlined and in fact it's declining.
[8:23] Speaker 2: Waybo. Yeah, because of Shaohonshu.
[8:25] Speaker 1: I would say that was one reason, probably also by
[8:28] Speaker 1: Dance's doting platform as well. Advertisers are going to spend
[8:31] Speaker 1: their dollars where consumer's eyeballs are, so it's not on
[8:34] Speaker 1: these legacy platforms, it's on growth platforms like shao Honshu.
[8:39] Speaker 2: Shaoanshu is good at keeping people scrawling, but it wants
[8:44] Speaker 2: to be more than just a recommendation engine. Right now,
[8:47] Speaker 2: if users see something they like, they can buy things
[8:50] Speaker 2: on Shaowongshu or on third party sites. But the goal
[8:54] Speaker 2: is what Rob calls a closed loop e commerce system
[8:58] Speaker 2: where consumers can discover a product and buy it all
[9:01] Speaker 2: without leaving the app.
[9:03] Speaker 1: Most internet businesses or social media businesses in China are
[9:06] Speaker 1: mostly reliant on advertising to generate their revenue. If we
[9:10] Speaker 1: look at the textbook of the generic internet model, you
[9:13] Speaker 1: want to capture your user base. I've just stressed the
[9:16] Speaker 1: fact that the authenticity of their reviews, the trusted nature
[9:20] Speaker 1: of their community is key. Obviously from a corporate point
[9:23] Speaker 1: of view, that opens up opportunities to monetize. So the
[9:27] Speaker 1: company is pushing into e commerce not to compete head
[9:30] Speaker 1: to head with the likes of Vali, barber, etc. But
[9:33] Speaker 1: really to try to recommend related purchases to what the
[9:38] Speaker 1: individual is particularly interested in.
[9:43] Speaker 2: In this month, Shaoangshu is expanding its e commerce push overseas.
[9:49] Speaker 2: It launched a shopping feature called red Shop in its app.
[9:52] Speaker 2: Consumers in the US, UK and Australia as well as
[9:56] Speaker 2: a handful of Asian countries, are now able to buy
[9:59] Speaker 2: directly from some Shaowang Shue merchants. And to what extent
[10:03] Speaker 2: are they working with e commerce platforms like Tabao ORJD
[10:07] Speaker 2: dot Com or pindle Do as well as some of
[10:11] Speaker 2: the brands out there.
[10:12] Speaker 1: Shao Hongshu's partnering with them on the fulfillment side. The
[10:15] Speaker 1: infrastructure is already there. It's a make or buy decision.
[10:19] Speaker 1: And given their greater focus on smaller ticket items, more
[10:24] Speaker 1: artisanal products, they're not competing head to head. I mean
[10:28] Speaker 1: JD dot Com, for example, does dominate electronics purchases online
[10:31] Speaker 1: in China and much bigger ticket items. Shaohongshu's not competing
[10:36] Speaker 1: in that marketplace.
[10:38] Speaker 2: How does Shawongshu fit into the China tech landscape at
[10:42] Speaker 2: the moment For.
[10:43] Speaker 1: Those who look at the China market, well, you know
[10:46] Speaker 1: tech is all of rage these days, in particularly Ai,
[10:48] Speaker 1: but if you look at the broader China tech sector,
[10:51] Speaker 1: even though Chinese companies are making good progress, you know,
[10:54] Speaker 1: deservia supply in the industry and that's impacting profitability. There's
[10:58] Speaker 1: also been a number of US price wars, particularly in
[11:02] Speaker 1: the e comma sector, so that has really and without exaggerating,
[11:05] Speaker 1: decimated the profitability companies like you've already mentioned pinned War,
[11:10] Speaker 1: Dwar or Ali Baba and JD dot Com is put
[11:13] Speaker 1: enormous pressure on them. So I think again, we don't
[11:17] Speaker 1: have the numbers on Shaohongshu at the moment, but it's
[11:21] Speaker 1: not exposed to any of those negatives.
[11:28] Speaker 2: What Chaowangshu's IPO could mean for Hong Kong, global investors
[11:32] Speaker 2: and confidence in China's tech sector, that's after the break.
[11:46] Speaker 2: Chaowangshu is gearing up for its next chapter, a potential
[11:50] Speaker 2: IPO in Hong Kong, with a confidential filing that could
[11:54] Speaker 2: happen as soon as the end of June. The company,
[11:57] Speaker 2: based in Shanghai, is backed by tech giants ten S
[12:00] Speaker 2: and Ali Baba, and Bloomberg reported the listing could rank
[12:03] Speaker 2: among Hong Kong's largest in recent years. Rob how big
[12:08] Speaker 2: do we think this could be in terms of this
[12:10] Speaker 2: Shawanshu ipo. What's the valuation now?
[12:13] Speaker 1: It's very difficult again for us to place evaluation on
[12:16] Speaker 1: it because we don't have full access to financials and
[12:18] Speaker 1: we're only going on unconfirmed reports of their recent fundraising rounds.
[12:23] Speaker 2: That's Robert Lee from Bloomberg Intelligence.
[12:25] Speaker 1: I think one of the rounds last year went at
[12:27] Speaker 1: evaluation of thirty billion US dollars unconfirmed. The more recent
[12:31] Speaker 1: round placed evaluation of fifty billion US dollars. But imagine
[12:35] Speaker 1: if this company really has momentum behind it and it's
[12:38] Speaker 1: coming to market at the moment, they undoubtedly will be
[12:40] Speaker 1: seeking a higher valuation than that. And again, if you
[12:43] Speaker 1: look at two smaller AI plays which are far far
[12:47] Speaker 1: smaller than this company and heavily loss making, this is
[12:50] Speaker 1: jupu Ai and also Minimax, which since their IPO in
[12:55] Speaker 1: January have gone up multiples. I think at the last count,
[12:58] Speaker 1: jupu AI's valuations and one hundred billion US dollars, which
[13:02] Speaker 1: is phenomenal for a company that will lose around six
[13:05] Speaker 1: hundred million dollars operating loss in the current financial year.
[13:09] Speaker 1: So there's a lot of hope being placed in that
[13:11] Speaker 1: business at the moment. Now, Hiao Hongshu's profitable, it's tangible,
[13:16] Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, it'scept for the
[13:17] Speaker 1: market to decide.
[13:20] Speaker 2: Now, there were reports that Shaongshu had confidentially filed for
[13:24] Speaker 2: a US IPO back in twenty twenty one, but the
[13:27] Speaker 2: process failed after Chinese regulators voice concerns about the listing
[13:32] Speaker 2: venue in the US. Why is Hong Kong the right place?
[13:38] Speaker 1: Now, this is a Chinese company, The vast bulk of
[13:41] Speaker 1: their users are in within mainland China, Hong Kong's part
[13:44] Speaker 1: of China, and also Hong Kong is Chinese window on
[13:48] Speaker 1: the world, if you like. So therefore it gives an
[13:50] Speaker 1: opportunity for Hong Kong based investors and then also through
[13:54] Speaker 1: the stock connect allowing mainland Chinese investors to participate, and
[13:59] Speaker 1: also so for foreign investors. So you know, on that basis,
[14:03] Speaker 1: it would seem the ideal place to seek a listing.
[14:06] Speaker 1: And then you're right as well, I think it's less
[14:10] Speaker 1: likely that we're going to see mainland Chinese companies listing
[14:14] Speaker 1: in international markets given the backdrop of geopolitics at the moment.
[14:19] Speaker 2: Back in twenty twenty, Beijing crackdown on Chinese tech and
[14:23] Speaker 2: later titan rules around overseas listings, citing data security and
[14:28] Speaker 2: capital outflow concerns for companies like shao Hongxhu. That's left
[14:32] Speaker 2: Hong Kong as one of the main viable options to
[14:35] Speaker 2: go public, and that's helped drive a bit of a rebound,
[14:39] Speaker 2: with listings in the city picking up, led largely by
[14:42] Speaker 2: Chinese tech and AI firms.
[14:44] Speaker 1: Hong Kong is back after all the challenges we've had
[14:47] Speaker 1: in recent years. The IPO market is really rampant. There
[14:51] Speaker 1: are so many companies looking to come to market. Still
[14:55] Speaker 1: it's been you know, if you're in a broking industry,
[14:57] Speaker 1: it should have been a pretty good twelve eighty months.
[15:01] Speaker 1: So I think it's very strong signaling for Hong Kong itself,
[15:05] Speaker 1: and also that China is open to the world and
[15:09] Speaker 1: China is a true innovator, because I suppose if we'd
[15:13] Speaker 1: had this conversation fifteen or twenty years ago, I think
[15:16] Speaker 1: most people would have said, you know, China's good at
[15:18] Speaker 1: manufacturing things, but a lot of their products are a
[15:20] Speaker 1: little bit a copycat. They're not that great innovation they're
[15:24] Speaker 1: maybe good at reverse engineering, and I think maybe there
[15:27] Speaker 1: was some truth in that, but increasingly Chinese companies, for
[15:31] Speaker 1: various reasons, are truly innovating, particularly within the software space.
[15:36] Speaker 2: Rob says when you step back, this all ties into
[15:39] Speaker 2: a much bigger story about China's economic strategy and it's
[15:43] Speaker 2: push into advanced tech.
[15:46] Speaker 1: If you look at the overall government strategy, China is
[15:49] Speaker 1: looking to the high tech sector as a future driver
[15:52] Speaker 1: of GDP growth. And this is for economy which is historically,
[15:56] Speaker 1: or the last twenty years, been very dependent on fixed
[15:59] Speaker 1: US at investment men, very dependent on the property markets.
[16:02] Speaker 1: So it's looking to diversify the economy, move away from
[16:06] Speaker 1: those traditional drivers of economic growth, to upscale the population,
[16:12] Speaker 1: and looking really solidly to the high tech sector as
[16:17] Speaker 1: a future of economic growth or as the government often
[16:20] Speaker 1: terms it, new productive forces. So therefore, that will require capital,
[16:24] Speaker 1: and whilst China has got massive foreign currency reserves and others,
[16:28] Speaker 1: it still requires external capital.
[16:32] Speaker 2: Rob the US has made it more difficult for Chinese
[16:35] Speaker 2: companies to list in the States. Are international investors then
[16:39] Speaker 2: bringing their money this way?
[16:41] Speaker 1: There was talk that a number of big US funds
[16:44] Speaker 1: were instruction internally, not to add to their China positions
[16:49] Speaker 1: really because of internal decisions, but also the geopolitical backdrop.
[16:53] Speaker 1: At the end of the day, what are active fund
[16:55] Speaker 1: managers there? They're there to generate a return for their shareholders,
[16:59] Speaker 1: for their holders, for their unit holders, and I think
[17:04] Speaker 1: at the end of the day, money talks. I think
[17:06] Speaker 1: if there are enough attractive Chinese companies coming to market
[17:10] Speaker 1: with attractive growth stories that are appropriately priced, because you
[17:15] Speaker 1: look at the multiples that companies are trading on out
[17:17] Speaker 1: here versus Nasdaq is a significant discount, then that will
[17:22] Speaker 1: attract capital flows into the Hong Kong and China market.
[17:25] Speaker 1: Despite the politics.
[17:27] Speaker 2: Sharon Shu's IPO is obviously a big story here for
[17:30] Speaker 2: Hong Kong and China if it proceeds. Why do you
[17:34] Speaker 2: think or how do you think this matters for the
[17:37] Speaker 2: rest of the world for American investors, for London investors, I.
[17:43] Speaker 1: Think there are high quality names here, but given the
[17:46] Speaker 1: predominance of challenges across the sector at the moment, price
[17:50] Speaker 1: wars over supply, etc. Again, for a market which is
[17:54] Speaker 1: substantially underperformed globally and regionally, with interesting co needs like
[18:00] Speaker 1: Shangshu coming to market, I think and hopefully redress the
[18:04] Speaker 1: balance and bring new life to the market. Perhaps new
[18:07] Speaker 1: blood coming in, but at the end of the day,
[18:10] Speaker 1: every stop market lives or dies on the new companies
[18:13] Speaker 1: coming to market.
[18:19] Speaker 2: This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm wanha.
[18:23] Speaker 2: To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access
[18:26] Speaker 2: to all of Bloomberg dot Com, subscribe today at Bloomberg
[18:29] Speaker 2: dot com slash podcast offer. If you liked the episode,
[18:32] Speaker 2: make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take Asia
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