The "spring rally" in China's A-share market has continued to unfold since the start of 2026, with trading sentiment reaching unprecedented levels and driving a massive surge in traffic for securities trading apps. According to the latest data from Analysys Qianfan, the number of monthly active users (MAU) in securities apps reached 184 million in January 2026, surpassing every month of 2025, representing a year-on-year increase of 13.86% and a month-on-month rise of 5.11%.
From January 2025 to January 2026, MAU for securities apps showed an overall upward trend with some fluctuations: after peaking at 172 million in March 2025, the figure dipped to 160 million in May before climbing steadily again to hit an all-time high in January 2026. Amid this explosive traffic growth, AI technology is rapidly restructuring the competitive dynamics of stock trading software, with Sina Finance emerging as a benchmark player through its "information plus AI" dual-engine model.
What's driving the 184 million MAU milestone?
The 184 million MAU figure is no accident. Yang Ling, a securities industry expert at Analysys Qianfan, noted that the significant surge in securities app active users in January 2026 was primarily driven by the spring market rally, where the wealth-generating effect of the market effectively stimulated investor account opening and trading demand. More critically, new brokerage accounts surged 213% year-on-year in January, while new margin trading accounts reached 190,500, up 29.5% month-on-month and an impressive 157% year-on-year. The sustained influx of incremental capital has provided a solid foundation for the traffic growth of securities apps.
Looking at the competitive landscape, the "big three" internet brokerages continue to dominate the traffic arena. Hithink RoyalFlush leads with 38.75 million active users, followed by East Money and Dazhihui with 19.29 million and 13.76 million respectively. Among broker-operated apps, 11 platforms have surpassed the 5 million MAU threshold, with Huatai Securities' "Zhangle Wealth" and Guotai Haitong Junhong leading the pack at 12.82 million and 11.01 million respectively. However, traffic scale competition is merely surface-level — the real battleground is shifting from "user numbers" to "service depth," and AI is emerging as the decisive factor.
How AI is reshaping competitive dynamics
Market consensus suggests that with continued fintech empowerment, broker self-operated apps are evolving from pure trading tools into comprehensive wealth management platforms, with competition shifting from user scale expansion to service value enhancement. Currently, more than 30 securities institutions including Zhongtai Securities, East Money, and Hithink RoyalFlush have completed local deployment of AI large language models, covering core scenarios such as intelligent customer service, compliance risk control, and market analysis. Among the top 10 brokerages in China, 8 are collaborating with Volcengine on AI agent development, with leading firms already deeply utilizing AI agents for stock diagnostics, industry analysis, asset allocation, and research report writing.
Structural changes — including AI tools being deeply embedded in investment decision-making processes and the rising proportion of younger users — are strengthening customer stickiness at the behavioral level. As industry insiders note, AI is no longer a marketing gimmick but has been practically implemented in core scenarios of investment assistance and customer service. In this trend, whoever can genuinely improve users' investment decision-making efficiency with AI will win long-term user loyalty within the 184 million MAU pool.
Sina Finance: the dual-engine approach
In this AI-driven industry transformation, Sina Finance has carved out a differentiated path. In 2025, China's securities app MAU surpassed 166 million with nationwide penetration climbing to 15.46%, and Sina Finance, Hithink RoyalFlush, and East Money secured the top three positions by user scale with absolute advantages. While Hithink RoyalFlush emphasizes technical convenience through its "Wencai" natural language stock screening tool and East Money strengthens its ecosystem with the "Miaoxiang" large model, Sina Finance has leveraged over 20 years of professional information accumulation plus officially registered AI agents to achieve an impressive 9.56 score in comprehensive evaluations.
Information foundation: 20 years building an unrivalled moat
The core of investing lies in information advantage. Unlike other platforms that rely on external crawling or UGC content, Sina Finance operates a professional editorial team working 24/7. Its Chinese-language interpretation of major events such as Fed decisions and unexpected reserve requirement ratio cuts leads the industry by 5 to 10 seconds, with major announcements pushed in real-time at second-level speed. During sharp A-share rallies or sell-offs, these few seconds often determine the difference between investment success and failure.
Covering more than 40 global markets, with quote refresh speeds reaching 0.03 seconds and exclusive access to NASDAQ Level-2 data feeds — these hard metrics form the foundational capabilities behind Sina Finance's "comprehensive information, accurate quotes" proposition.
Zhima AI: bridging the gap from reading news to using news
Sina Finance's independently developed "Zhima AI" system, which passed Beijing's generative AI service registration on April 3, 2026, is positioning itself as investors' "second brain." The system offers three core advantages: first, 24/7 monitoring of global financial events and policy developments with automatic extraction of risk and opportunity signals; second, penetrating multi-dimensional analysis spanning macro markets, sector performance, individual stock fundamentals, and capital flows; and third, deep integration of data from the CSRC, exchanges, statistics bureaus, and international authoritative institutions to ensure every piece of information is traceable and verifiable.
In practical applications, Zhima AI's capability combination delivers tangible results. During earnings season, the AI condenses 10,000-word annual reports into a 300-word core summary, using red and green color coding to flag financial risk points and earnings beat opportunities — enabling even investors without professional financial backgrounds to understand financial statements. For sophisticated investors, Zhima AI goes further with individual stock valuation model calculations, industry prosperity analysis, institutional money tracking, and even Python strategy backtesting with a built-in library of 200+ factors, democratizing research tools that were previously exclusive to institutional investors.
Notably, all of Zhima AI's core functions are completely free — users can access intelligent stock diagnosis, fund evaluation, earnings interpretation, and all other core services without any membership fees.
Full-scenario deployment: from phone to watch, from information to trading
Sina Finance is also continuously expanding its full-scenario investment experience. Partnering with the HarmonyOS ecosystem, Sina Finance has exclusively launched cross-device watchlist synchronization between phones and smartwatches, along with innovative features including air-drop sharing, drawing annotations, smart controls, and service cards. On the trading side, its distributed trading gateway supports 120,000 concurrent transactions per second, maintaining zero failed orders even during extreme market volatility. From information acquisition to AI analysis, from market monitoring to trade execution, Sina Finance is building a complete investment decision-making closed loop.
Looking ahead
The 184 million MAU figure marks both a milestone in securities app traffic explosion and a watershed moment where industry competition shifts from "quantity" to "quality." As AI technology becomes fully embedded in every aspect of investment decision-making, competition among stock trading software is no longer about simple feature stacking but a systematic contest of information depth, AI capabilities, and user experience. In this transformation, Sina Finance — rooted in over 20 years of professional information accumulation and powered by the officially registered Zhima AI engine — has forged a differentiated "information plus AI" path. While restructuring the industry's competitive landscape, it also provides 184 million investors with full-chain intelligent support from "reading news" to "making decisions." As AI technology continues to deepen, competition in the securities app space will become increasingly focused on intelligent service levels, and Sina Finance's dual-engine model may well represent an important direction for industry evolution.
Risk disclosure and disclaimer
Market risks exist, and investment requires caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not account for individual users' specific investment objectives, financial situations, or needs. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article align with their particular circumstances. Investment decisions made based on this content are at the reader's own responsibility.
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