Xiaohongshu has become the place where urban Chinese consumers check a purchase before they make it, and that position is now under pressure from its own business model. The app told Beijing Business Today in May 2026 that it had passed 400 million monthly active users and about 800 million searches a day. Three quarters of its revenue now comes from advertising, and an IPO is being prepared in Hong Kong. For a foreign brand, that combination changes the economics of working on the platform. We first wrote about Xiaohongshu in 2017; some of what we said then has held up and some has not, and we come back to both further down.
What is Xiaohongshu (RedNote)?
Xiaohongshu (小红书, “Little Red Book”) is a Chinese platform where users publish notes (photos, short videos, text) about products, places and services, and where other users search those notes before buying. It works as a social feed, a search engine and a store at once. RedNote is the English name that spread in January 2025, when American users arrived during the TikTok ban scare.
The company was founded in Shanghai in 2013 by Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu. Its first product was a downloadable shopping guide for mainland tourists in Hong Kong, written around the questions they kept asking: which handbag is cheaper here, which serum is genuine, how the tax refund works. User tips from Tokyo, Seoul and Paris followed, the name became Little Red Book Shopping Notes, and in-app shopping opened at the end of 2014. The mechanics have changed little since, while the questions have widened a lot: the same search bar now handles cold medicine in a Los Angeles pharmacy, deposit disputes with a landlord, or what to wear to a bank interview in Shenzhen.
The numbers, and how we read them
| Indicator | Latest figure | Source |
| Monthly active users | 400 million+ (May 2026) | Xiaohongshu via Beijing Business Today |
| Daily searches | About 800 million (May 2026) | Xiaohongshu via Beijing Business Today |
| Daily active users | 135 to 170 million (estimates) | 21st Century Business Herald, July 2026 |
| Interest communities | 3,000+, with 60 million+ new comments a day | Qiangua (千瓜数据), 2026 |
| Gender split of MAU | About 30% men, 70% women | 21st Century Business Herald |
| 2025 revenue | About RMB 42 billion, +40% | 21st Century Business Herald |
| Advertising share of revenue | 76% in 2025, 65% in 2023 | Huxiu (虎嗅), 2026 |
| Users showing purchase intent | 39 million a day | GROW merchant conference, April 2026 |
| Reported IPO valuation target | Above USD 70 billion | The Wall Street Journal, June 2026 |
Xiaohongshu is private and publishes no audited accounts, so revenue and profit come from company statements relayed by the press, or from investors. The user count also exists in two versions: sales decks and the Qiangua 2026 report still say 350 million, the May 2026 figure is 400 million. And a monthly user count measures reach more than use. Our founder Matthieu David-Experton made that point on LinkedIn in May 2026 about China’s official winter sports figures, where a wide definition produces a number that “reflects exposure, not active participation.”
Two ratios are more useful than the headline. Divide 800 million daily searches by 135 to 170 million daily users and you get five to six searches per active user per day. People use a search engine that way. Divide RMB 32 billion of 2025 advertising by 400 million monthly users and you get roughly RMB 80 of ad revenue per user per year. That second number is our own back-of-envelope calculation, but it explains a lot about the platform’s priorities: every point of growth now has to come from monetising the same users harder.
Who uses Xiaohongshu in 2026?
The core has not moved much since 2017, when we described the user base as “young affluent women living in urban areas.” Around seven users in ten are women, and beauty, skill learning and travel guides lead the search rankings, according to iiMedia data cited by the 21st Century Business Herald.
Growth is at the margins. Men went from roughly 20% of users in 2018 to about 30%, helped by spending on football, cars, outdoor gear and watches; outdoor and sports searches rose 72% year on year and car searches doubled. About 30 million monthly users are over 60, and creators in that age group are close to four times as numerous as in 2022. A feed built for post-90s women now also serves a 35-year-old engineer comparing hiking shells and a retired teacher in Chengdu planning Yunnan by train.
The World Cup bet
On May 28, 2026, Xiaohongshu became the only public internet platform licensed by China Media Group to stream all 104 matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, free. The early read is mixed. Men’s share of daily active users rose from 23% to 28% during the tournament and daily actives grew 12%, according to the 21st Century Business Herald, yet many of these men watched and left without posting, saving or buying. The platform got them in. It has not yet got them writing notes, and notes are where its value sits.
How the zhongcao funnel actually works
Marketers in China call the mechanism zhongcao (种草), “planting grass.” A note plants an idea, other notes from other people confirm it, and the purchase follows days later on Tmall, JD, Douyin or in a store. Xiaohongshu owns the top and the middle of that funnel. People open it about 16 times a day, according to the 21st Century Business Herald, and a large share go straight to search.
The funnel is now being rewired by AI. Xiaohongshu’s assistant Wen Yi Wen (问一问) summarises the notes behind a query; it has tens of millions of daily users and lifted retention by two to three points, per 36Kr figures cited by the 21st Century Business Herald. Adoption has been fast, which will not surprise anyone who lives in a Chinese city. Matthieu described on LinkedIn in September 2026 an ad for an AI office platform in the elevator of his Shanghai building, next to the property management notices, as an illustration of “how eager Chinese are to jump into new products.” For brands the consequence is technical: the summary draws on detailed, first-hand notes, so the note that feeds the AI answer can matter more than the note with the most likes.
The trust problem
Xiaohongshu sells one thing to users: the belief that a note was written by someone like them. Its revenue model pulls the other way. Advertising reached about RMB 32 billion in 2025, 76% of revenue against 65% two years earlier, according to an analysis on Huxiu. Brand requests to creators through Pugongying (蒲公英), the official matchmaking tool, rose 34% to 27 million.
Yilan, a research firm, reviewed the first page of results for “shampoo recommendations” (洗发水推荐) and classed 77.8% of notes as ads or filler. In an iiMedia survey, 63% of people who had left the app named fake information as the main reason. Both are cited by the 21st Century Business Herald.
In September 2025 the Cyberspace Administration of China had its Shanghai office summon Xiaohongshu, issue a warning and order fixes after the trending list kept pushing celebrity gossip. During 2025 the platform also removed more than 4.6 million notes mass-produced with AI.
Matthieu raised the same tension about luxury e-commerce on LinkedIn in September 2025, asking whether “visibility comes at the cost of authenticity.” On Xiaohongshu the question is sharper, because authenticity is the product. Readers now discount a sponsored note that hides what it is, and both the ranking and the AI summaries tend to push it down.
E-commerce: where the platform is trying to go
In 2019, a guest on Matthieu’s China Paradigm podcast told us that a good first year on Xiaohongshu for a little-known foreign cosmetics brand was “about 10,000 orders,” and that the app was for building buzz, not volume. The company would like to retire that reputation. At its GROW merchant conference on April 8, 2026, under the slogan “sell good products on Xiaohongshu” (卖好货就来小红书), it said 39 million users show purchase intent every day and that its top 100 merchants grew 2025 GMV more than 2.6 times, with a 32% repurchase rate and 81% of sales from returning customers, as reported by Guangzhou Daily.
These are hand-picked winners. The wider picture: one industry estimate puts Xiaohongshu’s 2025 e-commerce GMV near RMB 850 billion, against about RMB 4.3 trillion for Douyin, based on figures published on Huxiu. Xiaohongshu has not confirmed a platform-wide figure. A gap of roughly one to five tells us the 2019 advice still largely holds. The platform converts well for products that need explanation and trust, a niche serum for instance. Brands expecting Douyin-scale livestream volumes will be disappointed, and the 81% returning-customer share suggests the best merchants there win on retention.
What we said about Xiaohongshu in 2017 and 2019, and what still holds
| What Daxue said | When | Status in 2026 |
| Core users are young, affluent, urban women | 2017 | Still true for the core; men (30%) and over-60s are growing |
| Ideal for word of mouth for lesser-known brands | 2017 | Still true, but the cost of being heard has risen with ad saturation |
| Consumers grow wary of recommendations that look “too commercial” | 2017 | Confirmed, and now measurable (77.8% of a sample search judged ads or filler) |
| Users trust Xiaohongshu more than Baidu | 2019 | True, with 800 million daily searches; trust itself is now at risk |
| For buzz, not volume; about 10,000 orders a year for a new foreign cosmetics brand | 2019 | Largely true; GMV is roughly a fifth of Douyin’s |
| Sequence: listen, seed with KOCs and KOLs, open a store, expand elsewhere past 10,000 orders | 2019 | Still a sound order; the “listen” step matters more than ever |
The point we got most right in 2017 was the warning about commercial-looking recommendations. The point that aged least well is our implicit assumption that Xiaohongshu would stay an app for young women in tier-1 cities; about 30% of its users are now men, and 30 million are over 60.
How do brands work with KOLs, KOCs and KOSs on Xiaohongshu?
A foreign company can open a verified brand account, as on WeChat or Weibo; the paperwork starts with a business licence and varies by category. The account is a base. Reach comes from three kinds of creators.
| Type | Who they are | Role for the brand | Main strength |
| KOL (Key Opinion Leader) | Established creators with a large audience | Awareness, trend-setting | Reach |
| KOC (Key Opinion Consumer) | Everyday users sharing their own experience | Peer proof | Credibility |
| KOS (Key Opinion Sales) | Brand staff or trained advisors who create content | Technical answers, purchase guidance | Conversion |
The economics favour the bottom of the pyramid. Small creators charge around RMB 500 per image note and RMB 600 per video, and the platform reportedly sends about half its traffic to accounts under 1,000 followers, according to the 21st Century Business Herald. In the case discussed on our 2019 podcast, KOL posts drove 80% of a new store’s traffic; in 2026 we would expect a well-run KOC wave to carry more of that load.
The KOS deserves more attention than it gets. In July 2026 Matthieu argued that brands in China have overbuilt cafés and pop-ups and under-invested in “teaching customers a skill or a code they keep,” citing Van Cleef & Arpels’ L’ÉCOLE and Arc’teryx’s climbing academies. A KOS who explains how to layer a skincare routine, or how to size a trail shoe, is a small version of that idea, and it fits what Xiaohongshu users search for.
TikTok refugees: what happened after January 2025?
When a U.S. ban on TikTok looked imminent in January 2025, more than a million Americans joined Xiaohongshu. The hashtag gathered 700 million views in a week, and newcomers paid a “cat tax” by posting their pets.
U.S. daily actives fell from about 1.3 million in January to about 800,000 by March 2025, Rest of World reported, and interest faded again once TikTok’s U.S. ownership was settled, as The Wire China noted. Analysts quoted by Rest of World expect the international business to stay concentrated among overseas Chinese. The lasting effect is a global brand name, useful ahead of an IPO.
RedNote’s IPO: what investors are pricing
Reuters sources said in June 2026 that Xiaohongshu had hired Goldman Sachs and CICC for a Hong Kong listing; Bloomberg reported a confidential filing planned for the end of that month; The Wall Street Journal said investors hope for more than USD 70 billion. The China Securities Regulatory Commission still has to approve, and no prospectus was public as of October 2026.
The valuation rests on profit. Bloomberg reported in September 2025 that investors expected profit to triple to about USD 3 billion, from roughly USD 1 billion in 2024. Secondary trades valued the company at about USD 31 billion in 2025, according to Sina Finance, and up to USD 50 billion by year end, according to Reuters. For advertisers, a listed Xiaohongshu means quarterly pressure on a revenue line that is three quarters advertising: more ad formats, dearer paid traffic, a harder push toward the in-app store.
Matthieu David-Experton’s view
Matthieu writes on LinkedIn mostly about retail and channels, and several of his recent posts read like commentary on Xiaohongshu even when they do not name it. In September 2026, after watching Pangdonglai become the grocery chain every Chinese retailer benchmarks against while Yonghui (“THE retail chain when I arrived in China in 2009”) closes stores, he wrote that “the channels worth prioritizing shift faster than most multinationals can update their strategy,” and that the line between offline and online “has essentially disappeared.” A search engine that became a store and now streams the World Cup fits that description well.
His question about luxury e-commerce in 2025, whether visibility comes at the cost of authenticity, applies even more here: a brand that buys reach on Xiaohongshu without credibility pays for the ads and then loses the trust. His July 2026 argument that brands should teach customers “a skill or a code they keep” instead of opening another pop-up café points to the most underused format on the app, patient expert notes and KOS content that answer the questions people actually search. Writing about HOKA in 2025, he put it in a line that fits the platform: “timing and community matter as much as product.”
Where we would put budget in 2026
Start with listening. Before spending on creators, map what people actually type about your category, in Chinese and in their own words, and read the comment threads under competitors’ notes. They are some of the most candid consumer feedback available in China: price, texture, sizing, after-sales service, comparisons with the local challenger. Most campaign mistakes we see come from promoting a benefit nobody asked for while the same objection sits unanswered under every note.
Then build credibility from the bottom. A KOC wave of real users with real photos, followed by KOS content that answers technical questions, will usually do more than a few polished KOL posts. Keep the KOL budget for launches and moments when reach matters. Treat search as the main channel: if a question about your product has no credible note answering it, that gap is the brief.
Finally, watch the new audiences. Men and the over-60s are minorities on the app, but less crowded. For outdoor gear, cars, watches, supplements or travel, the cost of reaching them will probably rise as other advertisers catch on. Our hypothesis is that the brands that gain most on Xiaohongshu over the next two years will be those whose content looks least like advertising.
Need to understand how Chinese consumers talk about your brand on Xiaohongshu? Daxue Consulting runs social listening and consumer research on RedNote, Douyin and Weibo. Contact our team.
FAQ about Xiaohongshu (RedNote)
What is Xiaohongshu?
Xiaohongshu, known in English as RedNote or Little Red Book, is a Chinese lifestyle platform that combines user notes, search and e-commerce. Founded in Shanghai in 2013 as a Hong Kong shopping guide, it added in-app shopping in late 2014.
How many people use Xiaohongshu?
More than 400 million people a month as of May 2026, according to the company, with roughly 135 to 170 million daily users. About 70% are women, and users run around 800 million searches a day.
Is Xiaohongshu the same as RedNote?
Yes. RedNote is the English name that caught on when American “TikTok refugees” joined in January 2025. In China the app is still called Xiaohongshu.
Is Xiaohongshu going public?
It is reportedly preparing a Hong Kong IPO with Goldman Sachs and CICC, targeting a valuation above USD 70 billion. The China Securities Regulatory Commission still has to approve it, and no prospectus had been published as of October 2026.
How do brands market on Xiaohongshu?
Most open an official account, then work with KOLs for reach, KOCs (ordinary users) for peer proof and KOS (sales experts) for purchase advice. Search and feed ads complete the mix, and a growing number of brands sell directly through Xiaohongshu stores.
In conclusion
In conclusion, Xiaohongshu is where Chinese consumers decide whether something deserves their money, and its IPO will push it to sell more advertising against that trust. Paid reach will get dearer. We would put less into reach and more into being believed: listen first, then KOC and KOS content, with KOL budgets kept for launches.
Matthieu David-Experton founded Daxue Consulting in Beijing in 2012, when WeChat was a few months old. Our mission is to guide businesses to holistic growth in China, through consumer research, market analysis, tech-enabled data collection and strategy consulting, with teams in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. Two of our values shaped this article: intellectual humility, which meant checking our own 2017 and 2019 views against 2026 data, and the belief that knowledge is meant to be shared. To discuss what these findings mean for your business in China, explore our market research services and our sentiment analysis, read our guide to social media platforms in China, or contact our team.
Last updated: October 2026
Author: Ming Yii Lai, with additional research by Zoey Ye
