SoftBank's heavily held leading digital dining company in Hong Kong: three-year loss of 750 million yuan, profitability turnaround awaits assessment

Zaihui Inc. Makes Significant Progress in China’s Digital Food Service Sector — Files for Listing on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Simultaneously Advances Dual Listing Plans on the Singapore Exchange. According to a report by Zhuoshi Consulting, the company is currently China’s largest provider of online restaurant operation and marketing solutions. The listing is sponsored exclusively by Guotai Huarong.

Since its founding in 2015, Zaihui has consistently prioritized artificial intelligence technology as its core strategy, building a comprehensive service system covering influencer matching, content creation, online store management, private domain traffic management, and data analysis. The prospectus shows that the AI-assisted content generation adoption rate has reached 80%, serving over 43,000 restaurant merchants across more than 110 cities nationwide, and collaborating with over 70,000 content creators.

In terms of competitive landscape, Zhuoshi Consulting data indicates that the Chinese online restaurant operation and marketing service market in 2024 is highly fragmented, with the top five service providers holding only 3% of the market share combined. Nevertheless, Zaihui maintains the industry’s leading position with a 0.7% market share. Notably, in the first three quarters of 2025, its average revenue per user increased by 10.9% year-over-year, demonstrating strong customer stickiness.

Financial performance shows a clear improvement trend: from 2023 to the first nine months of 2025, revenue grew from RMB 379 million to RMB 449 million, a 25.87% increase year-over-year; net losses narrowed from RMB 446 million to RMB 71 million. However, gross profit margin declined from 60.6% in 2024 to 53.6%, mainly due to rising influencer collaboration costs and an increased proportion of low-margin businesses.

In terms of shareholder structure, SoftBank Vision Fund holds a 20.73% stake, becoming the largest shareholder. Well-known investment institutions such as Lightspeed China, Yunfeng Fund, and DCM are also major shareholders. This capital layout provides strong support for the company’s technological R&D and market expansion.

The prospectus also reveals multiple challenges: a cumulative net loss of approximately RMB 750 million over the past three years, continuous net cash outflows from operating activities, and significant short-term debt repayment pressures; high dependence on the restaurant industry, with increasing concentration of customers and suppliers; R&D investment ratio decreasing from 18.2% in 2023 to 14.7% in 2025, raising concerns about core technological competitiveness. These factors may impact the company’s path to profitability and cost control capabilities.

As a leading enterprise in the restaurant digitalization sector, Zaihui’s move to the capital market demonstrates its scale advantages as an industry leader but also exposes typical transitional challenges. Whether it can break growth bottlenecks through technological iteration and solidify its leading position amid fierce competition will remain a key focus for investors.