Xizi Health, grown in live streaming rooms, lacks a moat

Shen Tuo, Zebra Consumption

Leveraging Douyin's traffic红利, Xizi Health quickly emerged as a dark horse in the sports nutrition sector.

In the first nine months of 2025, Xizi Health sold products such as protein powders on Douyin, generating over 1 billion yuan in revenue, creating a commercial miracle in China’s sports nutrition industry.

Although selling products through live-streaming e-commerce links may seem straightforward, it comes with both blessings and risks — changes in platform ecosystems, rising traffic costs, and the company's heavy reliance on the platform have undoubtedly planted a ticking time bomb.

Will the 'family' in the live-streaming room stay? This poses a major challenge for Xizi Health.

The company owns four major self-brands including Fiboo and Gut Diary, targeting fitness enthusiasts, young professionals, and Gen Z consumers, offering solutions for muscle gain, nourishment, meal replacements, etc., allowing the company to rank third in the industry.

Recently, Xizi Health sprinted towards the Hong Kong stock market, planning to raise funds via an IPO to further invest in its core business. As a product of the live-streaming e-commerce era, the company must shed its 'internet celebrity brand' label and transform from traffic-driven to value-driven growth.

Can the 'family' wait until that day? For Xizi Health, this represents a pivotal battle to break through current limitations.

Dependent on Douyin

After working out every day, many white-collar workers routinely make themselves a protein shake or a cup of coffee. What they may not realize is that this daily habit has helped grow a company on the verge of going public.

Recently, Hunan Xizi Health Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'Xizi Health') launched its push for a listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This is both an inspiring story of a college dropout’s entrepreneurial逆袭 and a classic business case in the era of TikTok algorithms.

The company's actual controller, Liu Jianwei, discovered the commercial opportunity in sports nutrition products while operating third-party brands early in his career, and he dove headfirst into this blue ocean industry.

In 2020 and 2022, Xizi Health completed Series A and B financing rounds, raising 180 million yuan to accelerate the expansion of its own branded products.

In 2021, the company launched fiboo, a brand targeting women's nutritional health foods. Later, other brands such as Gut Diary, FoYes, and Hot Rule were introduced, covering three major consumer groups: fitness enthusiasts, light meal and nourishing meal replacements, and Gen Z. The products include various types of protein powders, creatine, gummies, and coffee.

From 2023 to 2024 and the first nine months of 2025, the combined revenue from these four brands was approximately 614 million yuan, 1.498 billion yuan, and 1.567 billion yuan, accounting for 42.4%, 88.5%, and 97.3% of total revenue, respectively. As the company's proprietary brands experienced strong growth, the share of income from third-party brands it operated continued to decline.

In the first nine months of 2025, the company achieved revenue of 1.609 billion yuan, nearing the full-year figure of 1.692 billion yuan in 2024. During this period, net profit reached 118 million yuan, with a gross margin as high as 59.5%.

Xizi Health's rapid rise to become the third-largest domestic operator of sports nutrition food brands is closely tied to its focus on online channels.

From 2023 to 2024 and the first nine months of 2025, the company generated revenues of approximately 1.433 billion yuan, 1.673 billion yuan, and 1.592 billion yuan through online channels, representing 99.4%, 98.9%, and 98.9% of total revenue, respectively.

Among these figures, direct-to-consumer sales via online platforms like TikTok, Tmall, PDD Holdings, and JD.com amounted to approximately 1.109 billion yuan, 1.495 billion yuan, and 1.445 billion yuan, accounting for 76.9%, 88.4%, and 89.8% of the company's total revenue, respectively.

Among these, the contribution from TikTok was the most prominent. During the same period mentioned above, revenue shares reached 45.5%, 61.9%, and 62.8%, respectively.

The prospectus disclosed that the company has an in-house live streaming team of over 110 people who have completed more than 10,000 live streams. All its TikTok stores are self-operated, and self-operated live streaming accounted for over 93.0% of GMV generated through TikTok in 2025.

As of the first 11 months of 2025, FoYes ranked first in the whey protein product category on TikTok, and fiboo ranked first in the multi-vitamin/mineral product category, both measured by GMV.

The company plans to use the funds raised from the IPO primarily to expand sales channels and distribution networks and to further strengthen its position in the sports nutrition and functional food markets.

Lack of moat

Xizi Health's online sales heavily rely on platform traffic allocation and algorithmic recommendations. While this model allows for rapid scale growth, risks follow closely—increases in traffic costs, changes in algorithms, and shifts in the platform ecosystem could all affect the company’s sales performance.

Thus, how long Xizi Health can continue to benefit from the 'cake' divided through platforms remains an open question without a definitive answer.

In the gradually fading traffic dividend, the company, in order to seize market share, can only continuously invest in promotional marketing. From 2023 to 2024 and the first nine months of 2025, the company’s sales expenses were approximately RMB 473 million, RMB 751 million, and RMB 756 million, respectively, with the sales expense ratio increasing from 32.7% to 44.4% and then to 47.0%. Undoubtedly, once the investment in sales expenses decreases, growth will be difficult to sustain.

During the years of Xizi Health's rise, it coincided with the high-growth period of the domestic sports nutrition and health food market. According to Frost & Sullivan, the retail sales of domestic sports nutrition products increased from RMB 3.6 billion in 2020 to RMB 8 billion in 2024 and are expected to reach RMB 19 billion by 2029.

Xizi Health is a dark horse in the industry, but compared to other domestic companies, there is still a certain gap.

In terms of business structure, the Beijing Stock Exchange-listed company Compeat has a more diversified portfolio, covering areas such as sports nutrition, health nutrition, military supplies, and digital sports technology. It is also strengthening both offline and online channels while frequently penetrating into popular events like marathons.

Compeat primarily focuses on product research and development, with significant R&D expenditure. In 2024, its R&D spending reached 32.6249 million yuan, accounting for 3.14% of its total revenue.

Although Xizi Health’s overall operating income is higher than Compeat’s, its R&D investment intensity is notably lower. In 2024, its R&D investment was 12.122 million yuan, accounting for only 0.7% of the company's total revenue, far below that of Compeat.

This means that under a strategy heavily reliant on online channels and marketing-driven growth, despite Xizi Health’s rapid expansion and product diversification, it has invested relatively little in technological accumulation and沉淀, which reflects a lack of deep competitive advantages. This presents a major challenge to be addressed in future development.

Keep in mind that the 'family members' in live streaming rooms do not have much loyalty. If there are issues with quality or pricing, these 'family members' can quickly turn into 'someone else’s family.'

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