After nearly a decade away from the independent cloud storage application market, veteran internet technology firm Xunlei Ltd. is making a comeback in this capital-intensive sector known for its high costs. On April 20th, Xunlei's new standalone cloud storage product, "Guangya Cloud Disk," officially opened for public registration. This once-dominant player from the download era is now promoting offers such as "2TB of permanent free storage upon registration, no login required for file downloads, no speed limits, and 500TB of space for standard members." This aggressive strategy stands in stark contrast to the current industry trend of scaling back.
A decade ago, the Chinese internet witnessed a brutal shakeout in the personal cloud storage sector. At that time, constrained by stringent regulatory pressures, massive bandwidth costs, and unclear profit models, major players including Xunlei's Kuaipan, Sina's Vdisk, and 360 Cloud Disk exited the market, ceding hundreds of billions in market share to a few survivors like Baidu. The industry eventually consolidated, leaving only a handful of giants who collectively reduced free benefits, limited speeds for non-members, and strictly controlled sharing functions, marking the end of the wild growth era for cloud storage.
Xunlei's re-entry coincides with the domestic cloud storage industry facing its strictest-ever copyright regulatory crackdown—the "Sword Net 2025" campaign. At a time when global tech giants are collectively pivoting towards AI and computing power, why has Xunlei chosen to restart this capital-intensive, low-margin, slow-return "tough old business"? With the dual pressures of the "Sword Net 2025" crackdown and the accelerating arrival of the AI era, is a new business model emerging for this traditional industry?
Xunlei's move to re-enter the consumer-facing cloud storage market is somewhat out of sync with the current market atmosphere. A year ago, the domestic cloud storage industry encountered the stringent "Sword Net 2025"专项整治行动, which listed "network storage + full-chain dissemination" as one of its six key focuses, bringing private cloud storage, offline resources, and overseas video content fully under regulatory scrutiny for the first time. "Sword Net 2025" is not the regulators' first action in this area. As early as October 2015, the National Copyright Administration issued the "Notice on Regulating Copyright Order in Cloud Disk Services." Soon after, a nationwide campaign was launched to combat the use of cloud disks for spreading pirated content, prompting many cloud storage companies to invest significant human and technical resources in intercepting and banning违规 accounts.
Against this backdrop, the domestic personal cloud storage market underwent a fierce elimination round. Around 2016, numerous players, including UC Cloud Disk, Sina Vdisk, and 360 Cloud Disk, shut down or scaled back their services due to regulatory pressure, high costs, and profitability challenges. Xunlei's own personal cloud storage ventures have been fraught with difficulties: in 2012, it launched "Xunlei Ark," focused on sharing and discovery, which was shut down in 2014 due to copyright disputes; in 2016, affected by the industry-wide reshuffle and regulatory crackdown, Xunlei Kuaipan also announced the cessation of storage services for individual users. After these two failed attempts at standalone cloud disk apps, Xunlei ceased developing independent apps and instead integrated cloud storage features into its main download application, which is the Xunlei App commonly used today. Subsequently, Xunlei focused its main efforts on services like download acceleration, blockchain, cloud computing, and live streaming.
However, Xunlei's development path over the years has also been turbulent. Despite ambitious plans to become a player in cloud computing, blockchain, and an ecosystem giant, Xunlei has found that its most stable and profitable revenue still comes from membership subscriptions (including download acceleration, storage, and premium experiences). Financial reports show that Xunlei's revenue from membership subscription services grew steadily from $91.2 million in 2021 to $154.8 million in 2025, a cumulative increase of 69.7% over five years. This segment represents Xunlei's only consistently growing, highest-margin, and most risk-resistant core business. In March 2026, Xunlei sold a 50% stake in Wangxin Technology to Kingsoft Cloud. This move was seen as a partial spin-off of the core entity of its cloud computing division, which was considered a second growth engine. Future profits will no longer be fully consolidated, with Xunlei retaining only a share of the earnings. Management stated that Xunlei will now fully focus on: membership subscriptions + overseas live streaming.
An尴尬 reality, however, is that with internet user growth plateauing and download demand growth slowing, the ceiling for membership subscription revenue is quite evident. The launch of Guangya Cloud Disk essentially represents Xunlei's attempt to convert more users into high-retention "member assets" through a storage tool. Ai Media Consulting's chief analyst Zhang Yi pointed out that "Sword Net 2025" has indeed significantly increased compliance and content review costs for cloud storage, forcing the industry to move away from models that rely on pirated content for user acquisition. The industry has overall entered a phase of normalized compliance and further consolidation among leading players. "Therefore, Xunlei's restart of its cloud disk plan now capitalizes on market gaps left by leading platforms retreating due to risk aversion, but the risks are clear; secondly, mainstream cloud disks普遍限速 and compress free storage, leading to集中爆发 of user experience pain points; thirdly, Xunlei's own download business growth has bottomed out, and it indeed needs to leverage its P2P technology advantages to find new growth points."
Internet analyst Ding Daoshi stated that as an entry point, a cloud disk can enhance other business areas. Therefore, making money directly from the cloud disk business might be secondary; the larger goal is to create synergies with other services. The rapid rise of Quark in recent years is a typical example. "This is also why many companies want to operate cloud disks." From the perspective of entertainment industry analyst Zhang Shule, Xunlei's restart of its cloud disk business is also a value-added service intended to complement its core download business. Zhang Shule noted that as users gradually move away from PCs and mobile phone storage space remains limited, there is a certain demand for cloud storage, especially for large files like videos. Many users are reluctant to have such content occupy their local storage long-term. Furthermore, the付费机制 and content limitations of long-form video platforms are activating user demand for long-term storage. Although this represents a niche market, it can yield long-term profits.
According to a Zhiyan Consultancy report, the number of active users in China's personal cloud storage market reached 398.7 million in 2024, with PC端 users accounting for 70% and mobile端 users for 30%. This vast user base provides broad growth potential for the industry. As users demand higher storage capacities and faster download speeds, their willingness to pay has increased, leading to rapid growth in the overall market size. In 2024, the market size of China's personal cloud storage industry reached 5.429 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.96%. Membership services accounted for approximately 51.6% of this, while value-added services accounted for about 48.4%. An Ai Media Consulting research report also indicated that as people's need to store digital information increases, personal cloud storage has become a necessity for most. However, after 20 years of development, this largely saturated market is dominated by giants: Baidu Netdisk holds an absolute leading position凭借 its extensive resource ecosystem; Alibaba's Ali Cloud Disk and Quark Netdisk are rapidly gaining market share; Tencent's Weiyun relies on WeChat and QQ for social file backup; and telecom operator-backed cloud disks retain their user base through broadband bundle packages.
The concentration of the domestic personal cloud storage market is increasing further. With the triple pressures of high bandwidth costs, low user willingness to pay, and tightening policy regulations, most players have chosen to withdraw. This signifies that the cloud storage race has entered an "endurance contest" phase: competing on superior cost control, clearer compliance boundaries, and more sticky付费转化. Therefore, it will not be easy for Xunlei to gain a foothold in the personal cloud storage market.
An iResearch report pointed out that 27.7% of users primarily use cloud disks as repositories for pirated resources. Many users consider the availability of pirated content on cloud disks a key factor motivating them to purchase memberships. Pirated content has directly become a付费转化 tool for cloud disk platforms, forming a畸形的商业模式: "cloud platforms tacitly allow/tolerate piracy to attract users — users pay for faster downloads and more space." Clearly, personal cloud storage is not just a tool for storing personal data but has also become a distribution platform for pirated content, which was one reason some platforms rapidly expanded their user base initially. Recently, links sharing pirated movie and TV show resources from Guangya Cloud Disk have been found on some social platforms. However, in the current strict regulatory environment, it will undoubtedly be much more difficult for Xunlei to attract more users through this path.
To attract users, Xunlei's Guangya Cloud Disk launched with an offer granting all users "permanent free 2TB storage space." A yearly VIP membership, costing only 108 yuan, expands this to 500TB. How significant is this offer? For comparison, Baidu Netdisk's new annual SVIP subscription offers only 5TB of storage space at a cost of 298 yuan per year. For non-members looking solely to expand space, 2TB costs 88 yuan per year, and 5TB costs 188 yuan per year. The newer player, Quark, offers slightly better deals than Baidu Netdisk: its SVIP provides 6TB of storage space, with a continuous annual subscription costing 128 yuan per year. Currently, the bulk procurement price for HDDs from suppliers to cloud service providers is around 100 yuan per TB. Procuring 500TB would thus cost approximately 50,000 yuan. However, the profitability logic of cloud disk business lies in resource pooling, deduplication, etc.
In addition to the large storage capacity, Xunlei's benefits include a 30-day VIP trial for new users, unlocking unlimited download speeds, HD playback, and 1TB large file uploads. The promise of unlimited speeds directly addresses the widely criticized speed-limiting practices of some mainstream cloud disks. However, a straightforward question arises: Can Xunlei make money this way? Zhang Yi believes Xunlei's move is a typical aggressive customer acquisition strategy. In the short term, it can leverage its P2P technology advantages to dilute bandwidth costs and use logical capacity and traffic tiering to control storage expenses. Essentially, it's using an极致体验 to rapidly acquire users, then relying on membership conversions to cover costs, creating a strong short-term impact. "However, in the long run, it will test their user retention and付费转化 capabilities."
A普遍行业共识 is that due to high costs, low付费转化率, and严重同质化, the personal cloud storage business is not a directly profitable venture. In terms of costs, cloud infrastructure constitutes the largest expense. A common misconception in assessing this business is attributing its capital intensity solely to high storage space costs, when in reality, bandwidth costs represent an even larger expenditure. This is also why platforms like Baidu Netdisk and Quark have never truly relaxed their speed-limiting policies for free users—speed limiting is essentially a measure to control losses. A典型案例 occurred in November 2025, when 123 Cloud Disk announced adjustments to user benefits, primarily targeting free users. The monthly free data allowance was reduced from 30GB to 10GB, and download services without login were discontinued. 123 Cloud Disk stated that this was due to continuously rising traffic and bandwidth costs, coupled with some free users批量注册 accounts through technical means or rule exploits, causing severe server resource congestion and malicious use.
The mainstream business model in the domestic personal cloud storage market employs the Freemium model, with revenue primarily coming from membership subscriptions, advertising, and value-added services. Free users get basic capacity and limited speeds, while paid users receive more space and faster transfer speeds. Using free services to attract a massive user base, then using premium services to筛选出愿意付费的用户, is the common path for almost all cloud storage service providers. Zhang Yi revealed that the annual rigid cost per active user for personal cloud storage business is between 200–350 yuan, and even inactive users cost nearly 100 yuan per year on average. The core of profitability in the industry depends on the付费率, which needs to reach around 15%. Currently, leading platforms generally fall short of this line, so the industry overall is in a state of strategic losses. Zhang Shule believes that for giants, developing personal cloud storage business is mainly to support their main businesses, providing配套个性化服务 for users. They can afford to subsidize it, meaning many companies aren't actually aiming to make money directly from this segment.
Under the pressure of regulations and costs, coupled with the accelerated arrival of the AI era, personal cloud storage services must deliver a better product experience to survive and thrive. Zhiyan Consultancy noted that before 2016, the domestic personal cloud storage market relied on free models to capture market share, resulting in small overall revenue. Starting in the second half of 2016, some cloud storage vendors shut down due to unbearable high costs. The surviving products accelerated commercialization efforts, launching membership and other value-added services, and offering付费用户 more diverse and attractive premium features.
To find new profit growth points, many cloud disks are establishing new business models beyond the traditional personal storage. For example, Quark employs a combined strategy of "ad-free search + AI assistant + membership bundle + ecosystem subsidies + scenario-based裂变," breaking away from traditional monetization models to form an AI-centric service闭环 and growth flywheel. Zhang Yi believes that industry development will also force personal cloud storage to transition from mere storage tools to personal intelligent data hubs, equipped with capabilities like AI multimodal processing and intelligent organization. AI will undoubtedly become standard, and a major contributor to incremental revenue, making price wars difficult to sustain.
For Xunlei, the launch of Guangya Cloud Disk is just the "first step on a long march." It has seized a window of opportunity during an industry reshuffle, but to破解 the "profitability curse" of the cloud storage business, it must find a sustainable commercialization path quickly while controlling costs. The only constant in business is change. Even the currently seemingly unattractive cloud storage market might yet stage a compelling new story.
Comments