Zaihui, a provider of online operations and marketing solutions for China's catering industry, has submitted a listing application to the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company is simultaneously seeking a secondary listing on the Singapore Exchange. Haitong International is acting as the sole sponsor, while CICC is serving as a joint global coordinator. According to the prospectus, the funds raised from the Hong Kong IPO will be allocated towards technology research and development, customer expansion, solution and service optimization, overseas expansion, working capital, and general corporate purposes.
Founded in 2015, Zaihui adopts an AI-first strategy. Its core businesses include new media services and online merchant solutions, offering comprehensive digital services to restaurant operators. These services encompass influencer matching, content marketing, online store operations, private domain management, and data diagnostics. The prospectus indicates that Zaihui has collaborated with over 70,000 influencers, provides services in more than 110 cities across China, and has served a cumulative total of over 43,000 catering merchants, with an AI-assisted content adoption rate of 80%.
Despite being ranked first in China's catering online operations and marketing services sector in 2024 with revenue of 450 million yuan, Zaihui holds a market share of just 0.7%, reflecting a highly fragmented industry. Several competitors immediately behind Zaihui hold market shares of 0.6%, indicating minimal differentiation. The combined market share of the top five service providers is only 3%, suggesting Zaihui's leadership position lacks a solid foundation.
Compounding this instability is a sustained slowdown in revenue growth. For the full year 2024, the company reported revenue of 490 million yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of 30.8%. However, for the first three quarters of 2025, revenue was 450 million yuan, with growth decelerating to 25.9%. This growth rate is not only slower than the previous full year but also falls below the industry's projected growth rate of 31.1% for 2025, indicating the company is underperforming the market average. In an intensely competitive landscape, this lagging growth increases the difficulty of maintaining a leading position and casts doubt on the sustainability of its revenue expansion.
The company's gross profit performance is also concerning, with a significant decline in gross margin. Zaihui maintained gross margins above 60% in both 2023 and 2024, at 61.0% and 60.6% respectively. However, in the first three quarters of 2025, the gross margin dropped sharply to 53.6%, a decrease of 7 percentage points. This compression is attributed to rising influencer costs and an increasing proportion of revenue from lower-margin new media solution services.
Regarding profitability, the company has remained in a state of continuous losses. Net losses for 2023, 2024, and the first nine months of 2025 were 446 million yuan, 235 million yuan, and 71 million yuan, respectively, resulting in cumulative net losses of approximately 750 million yuan over nearly three years. These losses are closely linked to the company's substantial operational investments.
A critical issue is that the company's sales expense ratio has consistently exceeded its gross margin. The sales expense ratios for 2023, 2024, and the first nine months of 2025 were 87.1%, 65.6%, and 57.7%, respectively. When combined with administrative and research and development expenses, these high costs further erode potential profits. Although the company has made efforts to control these expenses, sales expenditures remain a core method for customer acquisition, limiting significant reduction and maintaining substantial pressure on achieving profitability.
In terms of cash flow and capital reserves, the company has experienced persistent net outflows from operating activities. Cash outflows from operations were 137 million yuan in 2023, 169 million yuan in 2024, and 132 million yuan in the first three quarters of 2025. Between 2016 and 2021, Zaihui completed five funding rounds, raising nearly $240 million from private markets, with a post-money valuation reaching $600 million after its Series D round in 2021. However, due to ongoing cash outflows, its capital reserves have been dwindling. As of the end of September 2025, cash and cash equivalents stood at just 40 million yuan. If the IPO fails to successfully broaden its financing channels, the company faces significant risks to its funding chain for future operations and development.
The company's shift to a dual-primary listing model, with Hong Kong as the primary venue and Singapore as the secondary, introduces uncertainties. Initially, in December 2024, Zaihui filed a registration statement for a US listing with the SEC alongside an application for a secondary listing in Singapore. It subsequently abandoned the US plan, opting instead for the current dual-listing approach and resubmitting its secondary listing application to the Singapore Exchange on February 13, 2026. The core reasons for focusing on Singapore are not explicitly detailed in the prospectus.
The prospectus mentions that, as part of its international expansion strategy, Zaihui established a Singapore subsidiary, SpoonX, which was appointed as the agent for Dianping in Southeast Asia in December 2024. This suggests the Singapore strategy may be linked to this business development. However, the prospectus does not disclose specific operational details or actual revenue contributions from SpoonX in the Southeast Asian market, leaving the current state and profit potential of this venture unclear and adding a layer of uncertainty to the Singapore listing plan.
Furthermore, very few Chinese companies have chosen and completed listings in Singapore since 2020, making the receptiveness of the Singapore capital market and its fundraising effectiveness for Chinese firms an open question. Additionally, the sole sponsor for this IPO, Haitong International, lacks recent experience in sponsoring Singapore listing projects. These two factors further contribute to the uncertainties surrounding the company's dual-listing process.
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