A Perspective on Xunce Technology's (03317) Hong Kong IPO: Moving from an area of advantage to diversification, with both scarcity and high growth characteristics
Today, where AI technology is reconstructing business logic, Data Agent is bringing a new paradigm revolution to the enterprise data analysis industry.
IDC has predicted that by 2026, 50% of China's top 500 data teams will use AI agents to perform data preparation and analysis, and data engineering agents will become important organizers and coordinators of enterprises. Behind this data, it also directly shows a new trend in the data analysis industry — that is, through the integration of “data+knowledge”, insight to the three core values of closed loop of action, and human-robot collaborative evolution, Data Agent is breaking through the power boundaries of traditional data analysis tools.
Under this new trend, it has also brought unprecedented market attention to digital analytics companies that have taken the lead in completing “AI-native” transformation.
In the case of Xunze Technology (03317), which provides “fuel” and “runway cars” to the data agent industry, the company is a leading domestic supplier of real-time data infrastructure and analysis. Business data infrastructure and data analysis applications are also the most critical part of the data agent industry chain, so the move to go public in Hong Kong has also attracted widespread market attention.
On December 18, Xunce Technology issued an announcement stating that from today until next Tuesday (23rd), 22.5 million H shares will be sold. The Hong Kong public offering accounts for 10%, and the rest is an international placement. The listing price per share ranges from HK$48 to HK$55, and the maximum amount raised is HK$1,238 billion. 100 shares for the first lot, entry fee HK$5555.47. In terms of cornerstone, the company has now introduced a total of 9 cornerstone investors, including Yunfeng Fund, Fortune Holdings, China Television Jinqiao, Alphahill Fund, Infini Capital, Rose Hong Kong, Cithara Fund, Factorial Master Fund, and Joy Mobile, with a total subscription of about US$39.57 million (approximately HK$307.8 million).
It is expected that by December 30, the stock will be officially listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This also means that with the successful entry of Xunze Technology into the Hong Kong stock market, the company is expected to become the “first Big Model Data Agent” in Hong Kong stocks.
Now that Xunce Technology is sprinting into the Hong Kong stock listing stage, we might as well explore in depth through the company's fundamentals and industry development potential - where is the investment value of Xunce Technology mainly reflected? Can we take advantage of the rising trend of the industry to seize development opportunities?
Multi-dimensional advantages create scarce traits
According to Zhitong Finance, Xunce Technology, founded in 2016, is a famous supplier of real-time data infrastructure and analysis solutions in China. It mainly provides real-time information technology solutions covering data infrastructure and data analysis for enterprises in all industries.
Its product portfolio mainly covers two parts. One is data infrastructure, a cloud-native unified data platform that can be enabled by AI to collect, clean, manage, analyze, and govern heterogeneous data from multiple sources and deployed in the customer's cloud or local system; the second is data analysis applications, which can use the underlying infrastructure to generate insights, make predictions, or provide data for real-time business decisions.
Supported by strong barriers created by technology, it also prompted Xunce Technology to quickly become the “leader” in the industry segment.
According to Frost & Sullivan's data, in terms of 2024 revenue, the company ranked first in the real-time data infrastructure and analysis market in the Chinese asset management industry, with a market share of 11.6%. It ranked fourth in the real-time data infrastructure and analytics market in China, with a market share of 3.4%.
Of course, what gives Xunce Technology its leading position is not only its current market share, but also a “privileged ticket” to explore the market at a lower cost and with a higher probability of success.
For example, pricing power and profit potential. With technical barriers and leading positions, it has also prompted Xunce Technology to have a certain advantage in bargaining and has the ability to maintain a high gross profit margin: According to the prospectus, the company's gross margins were 78%, 79%, and 76.7%, respectively, from 2022 to 2024, which is at a high level of profit. This also means that Xunce Technology has sufficient momentum to fund continuous high R&D investment and provide resource support for business diversification.
Then there's the customer acquisition advantage. According to reports, Xunce Technology's customers mainly cover asset management fields such as insurance companies, mutual funds, bank asset management departments, securities companies, and corporate treasury. The company has maintained a high net revenue retention rate, which is sufficient to support the high customer stickiness. Furthermore, the leading position itself is also the strongest “credential”. When expanding new customers, it can significantly reduce customer decision risks and verification costs, and achieve “benchmark-driven sales.” Therefore, at present, Xunce Technology has also successfully expanded its solutions to diversified industries other than asset management, mainly including financial services, urban management, and telecommunications, which also covers China's top three state-owned telecom operators.
In addition to this, the corporate leadership effect also has a certain ability to absorb resources. Judging from the company's equity structure chart, Xunce Technology's equity structure mainly shows the characteristics of “founder holdings+star institutions gathering”, that is, in addition to the company's founders controlling nearly 30% of the shares, the company's shareholders cover top capital such as Tencent, Yunfeng Fund (Ali), Goldman Sachs, and KKR. This kind of “luxury” lineup itself is a powerful resource endorsement, which can help companies gather the best quality industry resources and form the “stronger the stronger the stronger” Matthew effect.
From the above performance, it is easy to see that Xunce Technology is a company that has established deep brand barriers in the field of segmentation and has been recognized by top capital and high-quality customers. This has also encouraged it to build a strong differentiated competitive advantage — that is, on the “high altitude” track of real-time data processing, Xunce Technology is one of the few guides that have all equipment and successfully climbed to the top, which also lays a solid foundation for its subsequent growth.
“Ability to replicate technology across industries” drives high growth
Looking at industry prospects, with the explosion of large models and AI applications, unprecedented requirements have been placed on high-quality, real-time data supply, and the development circuit where Xunce Technology is located is clearly also quite imaginative.
According to the “China AI Agent Industry Development Status Analysis and Investment Prospect Research Report (2024-2031)” published by the Research Report Network, China's AI Agent market will reach 852 billion yuan in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 72.7%.
Under the explosive growth of the AI smart device industry, the development potential of the “real-time data infrastructure and analysis” circuit of Xunce Technology will also accelerate, and the market potential is huge: According to the prospectus, China's overall real-time data infrastructure and analysis market is in the early stages and is rapidly expanding. The overall potential market size will reach 525.2 billion yuan in 2024, and is expected to reach 1,152.9 billion yuan in 2029.
Under the high growth trend of the industry, Xunce Technology's revenue also showed high growth characteristics — from 2022 to 2024, the company's revenue was 288 million yuan, 530 million yuan, and 632 million yuan respectively, with a compound annual growth rate of 48%. And as the AI wave accelerates development, the company's subsequent business will also unleash more momentum for growth.
It is worth mentioning that Xunce Technology's ability to replicate technology across industries has also opened up a wider industry ceiling for it.
According to reports, although Xunce Technology started with asset management, the company's technology has now been successfully reused in various fields from finance to telecommunications and urban management, further verifying the company's ability to reuse across industries. With the successful diversification of the business, Xunce Technology's revenue structure also underwent a fundamental shift: in the first half of 2025, revenue from diversified industries such as telecommunications, urban management, and production management reached 52.7%, surpassing the asset management business it started for the first time.
More importantly, large customers in these new industries are extremely capable of paying, and can also provide a higher and more sustainable revenue ceiling for Xunce Technology.
Looking at the demand for real-time data infrastructure and analysis solutions in different industries, Xunce Technology's cross-sector layout is also a forward-looking move. As the digital transformation of enterprises continues to accelerate, in addition to the asset management industry, the demand for real-time management data has also increased in many other industries. For example, financial services (excluding asset management) can collect and process transaction data from various channels in real time to identify fraudulent transactions in real time; the telecommunications sector helps telecom manufacturers optimize network resource allocation by collecting and processing data such as network performance and user behavior in real time.
Using this analogy, as Xunce Technology continues to dig deeper into development opportunities in multiple industry segments, the company will also reap the second, third, and even Nth “growth curves”.
Of course, Xunce Technology has opened up a ceiling of growth through successful technology replication capabilities across industries, which is also inseparable from the construction of the company's technical barriers.
From 2022 to 2024, the company invested 259 million yuan, 379 million yuan and 450 million yuan respectively, accounting for more than 70% of revenue, which is far higher than the industry average. This high investment in R&D is not unrelated to the construction of technical barriers by Xunce Technology. It is reported that the company invested a large amount of capital in the R&D of a cloud-native unified data platform and modular architecture (with 300+ modules), creating a technical moat that is difficult to replicate for the company and further consolidating its leading position in the market.
Large R&D investments have also contributed to Xunce Technology's current strategic losses, but from a long-term perspective, Xunce's losses are more like “R&D capitalization”. Today's every yuan invested is turning into a development gap that cannot be easily overcome by competitors tomorrow, such as the ability to be reused across industries and a higher growth curve.
epilogue
In summary, it is easy to see that Xunce Technology is a track segment leader that has established professional barriers in the field of real-time data processing segments and has been recognized by top capital. The scarcity of “high-growth track leaders” and the high growth potential of “technology reuse across industries” have also encouraged it to have a broad moat and broad room for expansion.
With the support of these multiple competitive advantages, the company's long-term development is also very imaginative. As Xunze Technology successfully enters the secondary market, investors may wish to include it in the stock pool as a long-term observation target, because once the company's multi-growth curve growth potential is fully unleashed, the company's performance and value are expected to usher in a large upward space.